Lögberg-Heimskringla - 11.09.1992, Síða 3

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstúdagur 4. september 1992 3
Coming home to Gimli
The Reverend Wayne Arnason
For years people have come
home to Gimli in the summer-
time. We tend to see that as a
natural thing to do for those who
were born and lived in the area, but it
is just as true of those who have come
to know Gimli as their summer home.
One such person is Reverend
Wayne Bergthor Arnason. He was
bom and brought up in Winnipeg by
his parents Lilja and John Arnason.
John was bom and grew up in Gimli.
Lilja came with her parents to their
cottage each year, so Gimli became
her summer home. So, it was the nat-
ural thing for Wayne to come with his
sister, brother and parents to spend
the summer holidays in Gimli. This he
did until he was sixteen years old at
which time he began attending youth
church conferences.
It’s a small world as we say,
and connections and
interconnections continually
take place between Icelanders.
Coming home to Gimli you
are sure to connect with that
bond of being Icelandic
Wayne was ordained as a
Unitarian Minister in 1976 and since
then has served in different locations
in the United States. First as assistant
minister at the San Francisco Uni-
tarian Church; then as Minister in
Hayward, Califomia at the Starr King
Unitarian Church; going from here to
headquarters in Boston to work at
Youth Programming and confer-
ences. In 1984, he became the minis-
ter for Thomas Jefferson Memorial
Church in Charlo HesVille Virginia
and still serves this congregation.
Wayne and his wife Lida have one
daughter Sarah who is nine years old.
Wayne is also father by adoption to
his wife’s two children who are both
older and now going to college. After
Sarah was born the family has been
coming to Gimli every summer.
Besides visiting her grandparents,
Wayne would like his daughter to
have some of the same experiences as
he did as a child. Since a number of
relatives live in the area, Wayne finds
that his cousins try to come home to
Gimli too, especially around the
Icelandic Festival weekend, and this
means that their children are getting
to know each other as well. They all
have a common bond to their great
grandmother Runa Amason who, in
her 104th year, resides at the Betel
Home in Gimli.
The Icelandic Festival was always
an important highlight of the summer
for Wayne and he sees the same
sense of excitement in his daughter.
Besides the parade and races there
are other activities to get involved in,
like the midway and sandcastle con-
test. Without this special weekend
and the gathering of family he feels
that his daughter would have a
diminished sense of herself as having
Icelandic roots. Coming back each
year has given him a sense of identity
and pride in his heritage. He feels
that coming home to Gimli is a re-
affirmation of one’s identity as an
Icelander.
Other qualities about Gimli that
are important to Wayne are its size,
the location by the lake, the friendly
people and the values he finds in this
community. For many others, these
same reasons may exist for coming
home each year. But one interesting
aspect of Wayne’s visit is how he
takes a bit of Gimli back to his con-
gregation each year.
Upon his return to the Thomas
Jefferson Memorial Church, Wayne’s
first sermon is developed around
some event or situation he has expe-
rienced while in Gimli. This
approach, he says, was inspired by
listening to the radio show Prairie
Home Companion by Garrison
Keillor from St. Paul, Minnesota.
Part of this program was a 20 minute
monologue about the “Home Town
of Lake Wobogon”.
Hearing how “small town” Min-
nesota was woven into this presenta-
tion gave Wayne another perspective
for viewing life in Gimli which
seemed to take many similar parallels
The Winnipeg Sketch Club is cele-
brating its 75 th anniversary this year.
The club is in no sense a school, but
an organization of art lovers to meet
and profít by mutual help and exam-
ple through the study of the living
model and the practice of sketching
from nature. The object of this club is
to provide a ground where members
may meet for the purpose of advanc-
ing their studies by means of sketch
meetings and for the encouragement
of work done independently.
Our most prominent members of
the club at present are Leo Mol
whose works are featured in the
recently opened Leo Mol sculpture
garden at the Assiniboine Park and
Robert Pollock who recently won the
to “Lake Wobogon”. His first sermon
in this approach incorporated the
decision making around the four way
stop signs at 4th avenue and Centre
street. Since then, some of the topics
have included the Tomado, changes
to the town with the development of
the hotel, as well as his grandmoth-
er’s lOOth birthday and his mother as
the Fjallkona for the Icelandic
Festival. This year he has chosen the
commercial promotional event, 2,000
ping pong balls dropped from a plane
over Centre street.
Wayne’s congregation look for-
ward to hearing the sermon that
brings to them another event from
Gimli. This has created a feeling of
kinship as seen by his parents who
on a visit to Charlo Hesville, felt a
wave of welcome from the group as if
they had been coming to that church
for a long time. Members from the
church who attended a Canada/U.S.
Unitarian Conference in Calgary
made a point of travelling through
Canada so they could stop in Gimli
on their way. Lilja and John have had
more than one visit and more than
one phone call from people connect-
ed to Wayne’s church. Wayne also
Artists magazine’s wildlife competi-
tion in Cincinnati.
We would like to announce that
on October 4th at 2:30 p.m. we will
have the opening of our 75th Annual
Juried Show at the Provincial
Archives. We are honored to have
former mayor Steven Juba opening
the show. The show will feature a 75
year retrospective and will include a
section featuring sketches from the
evening sketch meetings.
There are a few aspects that may
interest many of your readers.
Historically significant in that sketch-
es of local institutions that no longer
exist, e.g. old city hall, churches,
parks, etc. Personal interest to many
people that have belonged to the club
pointed out that the Westem Canada
Unitarian ministry existed because of
the Icelandic group of Unitarians in
Winnipeg. Consequently he frequent-
ly meets Icelanders from Canada as
well as the United States at confer-
ences and conventions.
Another note of interest was how
a member from the congregation had
received a home video on Gimli from
people he had met at the conference
“Institute on Religion in an Age of
Science”. These people were Joyce
(Thorkelson) and Vin Giedraitis who
of course have Gimli connections
and were most interested that this
person knew some one from Gimli.
Joyce was able to sort out which fam-
ily Wayne came from and that his
Dad had been two grades ahead of
her at school. It’s a small world as we
say, and connections and intercon-
nections continually take place
between Icelanders. Coming home to
Gimli you are sure to connect with
that bond of being Icelandic but I
sense that meeting another Icelander
where you least expect to also makes
for feeling “at home”.
for the past 75 years and to the
swelling number of extremely talent-
ed artists that are becoming publicly
reknown worldwide. Also a bonus
for us will be the added presence of
Mr. Juba, a very well known public
figure.
For any further information please
contact: Alice Berry, president - 889-
0387, or Don Palsson, council mem-
ber - 582-1574.
Robert Pollock and I showed our
works at Gimli during the festival.
Robert placed in the prizes and I was
fortunate to sell one piece of art.
Fran Partridge who has done por-
traits at the art show for quite a few
years is also a member of our club.
Donald Palsson
D.N.
Sketch club invites submissions