Lögberg-Heimskringla - 11.06.1999, Blaðsíða 3

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 11. júni 1999 • 3
ICELANDIC NEWS
Ingibergur Sigurðsson
Four-time Glíma Champion
The Iceland Meet in Glíma took
place recently with eight men
taking part. This was the eighty-
ninth competition for the Grettir’s Belt,
the oldest prize in the history of
Icelandic sports. Some of the chal-
lengers did not appear to be in good
practice, relying more on experience.
Ingibergur was clearly the strongest
competitor although he has not empha-
sized glíma in the last few years after he
began practicing judo. He did not
appear to have much difficulty with his
opponents, and did not get into dire
straits during his seven matches. His
first match against Arngeir Friðriksson
from Þingeyjarsýsla ended with a draw,
and also with his teammate, Pétur Ey-
þórsson. Other challengers—Sigurður
Kjartansson, KR, Stefán Geirsson,
HSK, Orri Björnsson, KR, Jón Birgir
Valsson and Olafur Kristjánsson—
Ingibergur felled confidently.
Pétur drew deserved attention for
exceptionally good defence. He kept his
opponents on their toes and lost only
two matches against Sigurður and
Ólfur. However Pétur was not as coura-
geous in his offence, but possibly his
physical strength hindered that. Stefán
took part in the Iceland Glíma for the
first time, after winning the
Skarphéðinn District
Shield. Stefán displayed
courage and boldness in
most of his matches and is
clearly a wrestler with a
future.
The Glíma Champion
from 1994, Orri Bjöms-
son, met for play although
he was not in good prac-
tice. He grew with every
match and only lost to the
present Glíma champion.
He made a draw against
the young men, Stefán and
Pétur.
Ingibergur said in an
interview with Morgun-
blaðið that he had let
Glíma lag behind last year
and put his emphasis on
judo. “The aim is to go to
the Olympics in Sydney
next year, but it does not
come easily. I will have to
take part in many costly
competitions which I have
yet to finance. However, if
I get sponsors I ain inter-
ested in taking part and
this will put glíma on
hold.”
Her Soul Encoded by Water and Boats
Continued from the previous issue.
Reprinted with permission from Rescue
from Grampa Woo by Joan Skelton, pub-
lished by Natural Heritage Books.
WITH A LEAVE OF ABSENCE, she
sailed on the Atlantic Ocean
on the three-masted topsail
schooner, Alexandria. On it, everything
was done manually.
“Our heat was provided by a wood
stove in the room quarters. The Captian
had an oil bumer in his cabin. The food
was kept in a great big wooden ice chest
on board the deck, and when the ice
melted, that was it for fresh food. Fresh
water was rationed, and we bathed in sea
water.”
The Alexandria was involved in the
celebration in Quebec for a Jacques
Cartier anniversary.
“Everybody's personal space, and
what they expect out of a job, has
changed. It used to be that you went onto
a boat and you didn't expect to have your
own private room. You just sort of
assumed you were going to be living
with three other guys or something. But
now, everybody’s personal space has
changed. You used to crawl into your
bunk with your clothes on and just your
seaboots off and your coat. You’d change
your clothes every once in a while when
you chose the opportunity but everybody
behaved like that and it was just stan-
dard. Nobody was really obsessed with
privacy. You can’t really be obsessed
with privacy when you’re on a boat any-
ways. Except for your bunk. If anybody
sits on your bunk, this is a really big deal.
That’s your space.”
With her accumulation of sea time
on the Alexandria, she went to Marine
School in Winnipeg to get her
Commercial Ships Officer licence.
“At one time, Winnipeg was consid-
ered an inland commercial waterway and
they had quite a bit of commercial ship-
ping there. I came in on the very tail end
of it. We were the last and I was the first
woman to graduate in Manitoba as a
Master Minor Waters. So I got my ticket
and wa's recruited out of Marine School
to go and be the Second Officer on the
old Lord Selkirk again. I did’t have my
driver’s licence yet. I could steer a fifteen
hundred ton ship, but I couldn’t drive a
car. I would have been twenty-four or
twenty-five.”
She moved up to become First
Officer on the Lord Selkirk, and then
went back to the River Rouge as Captain.
“Ironically, the old Captain that was
there originally and threw me the bags of
chips all those years ago said, ‘Well, it’s
come to this, eh?’ It was great.”
She was working a seventy-five- to
eighty-hour week with no overtime pay
and no days off from May to November.
When she heard rumoíirs of possible lay-
offs because of the riverboat companies’
being in trouble, she put in her applica-
tion with the Coast Guard. Inga left
Winnipeg to begin wheeling on the
Woodland, which sailed out of Thunder
Bay carrying craft paper, deck cargo and
lumber down to the Detroit Windsor
area. Then, she was hired by the Coast
Guard.
“I lucked into the Coast Guard job
and I certainly have no regrets about that.
That was spring ’89. When the competi-
tions came up, I was working as hard as
I possibly could. Foutunately, I got in.
With Bob King’s help, I was sent on the
coxswain’s course. That was a bit of a
feather in my cap. Now, we are one of
the very few crews in Canada, maybe the
only crew in Canada, where everybody is
a trained coxswain on the crew. We’re
really unique that way.”
This uniqueness may have con-
tributed to their survival that night. Each
was able to take the wheel and spell the
other off, each knew the ship and had
confidence in it, despite its propensity to
roll, its sluggishness from ice and its loss
of buoyancy. Each had confidence in the
ability of the others. Willie Trognitz
noted:
“We took tums on the wheel and I
must say that we all worked together as a
team and at one time I’d be on the wheel
and Inga would be on the radar and Bob
out a little crack would be watching
which way the waves would be coming
and he would say, ‘Okay, hard to star-
board. Hard to starboard!’ because when
Christianization
Continued from page 1
people are filled with admiration of this
simple solution to a complicated dis-
pute which people were ready to fight
for. It would be worthwhile to educate
people about the adoption of
Christianity in Iceland.”
MESSUBOÐ
Fyrsta Lúterska
Kirkja
Pastor Ingthor I. Isfeld
10:30 a.m. The Service
First Lutheran Church
580 Victor St., Winnipeg
R3G 1R2 Ph. 772-7444
Minnist
BETEL
í EKFÐASKRÁM YÐAR
the waves were coming from behind us,
we’d want the wave to hit our stem flush
on. We didn’t want to be in a trough. A
couple of times when we couldn’t see a
thing—you couldn’t help it—the waves
were coming from different directions—
you’d be in a trough and then you’d get
a real violent pitch and you were won-
dering if you were going to go over.
“Like, we were in a pretty bad situa-
tion ourselves but holding our own.
Nobody panicked or anything because
we, you know, we’ve been in tight situa-
tions before.”
So the three worked in the close
quarters of a wheelhouse roughly the
size of a large shower stall, trying to
maintain the stability of the ship, shout-
ing over the noise of the engines and the
wind, unable to use the headphones
needed during communication, grabbing
at the handles for balance, passing
around a two-litre bottle of Coke as they
became dehydrated and hoarse, their feet
leaving the deck with the bunt of each
wave; Inga seasick into a wastebasket
the first time in her life, no-one noticed;
Bob not feeling so well either, Willie
having a bout of nausea, each taking a
tum watching out the back for the direc-
tion of the waves, the windows were iced
from freezing spray, each taking a tum
studying the radar, then wheeling.
Her Soul Encoded by Water
and Boats will be continued in the next
issue.