Lögberg-Heimskringla - 04.03.1994, Blaðsíða 2

4 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 4. mars 1994
The Lost Stories of Ragnhildur Guttormsson:
Last week, Kirsten Wolf, chair ofthe depart-
ment of Iceiandic at the University of
Manitoba, presented for the readers of
Lögberg-Heimskringla some “lost writing”
by the Icelandic Canadian author
Ragnhildur Guttormsson.
This week, we offer another of the lost
stories of Ragnhildur, as discovered and
edited byDr. Wolf. Because ofthe length of
this story, we will run it in two parts, with
the conclusion to come in our next issue.
by Ragnhildur Guttormsson
It was still dark when
Barney came out of his
fishing camp on Spruce
Island in Lake Winnipeg. To
the southwest a waning moon
had pinned its silver crescent
to the top of a dark, brooding
spruce tree, which, with its fel-
lows, formed a half-circle of
serried protection around the
camp. To the east lay the lake,
now stilled under a young,
smooth sheet of ice, and above
it on the horizon the thin,
white profile of a new day.
The snow creaked rebel-
liously under Barney’s heavy
tread, as he walked towards
the straw thatched kennels at
the side of the camp. He was
carrying the dog harness, the
little silver bell on Trigger’s
hamess tinkling at every step.
Trigger must have heard it, for
he came out of the kennel to
meet his master. He was the
leader of the team, a large,
black, short-haired dog, with
the build of a Great Dane.
Now he yawned, stretched
himself, then fawned upon
Bamey as he bent down to slip
the collar over his head. His
long red tongue came out and
flicked across Bamey’s cheek.
“Down Trigger, none of your
tricks,” Barney’s voice came
deep and muffled out of the
frosty dusk.
Soon the six dogs were all
harnessed and hitched to the
toboggan which Chris was
meanwhile piling high with
boxes holding the nets. Bamey
and Chris had sat up till mid-
night getting them ready, try-
ing on the floats and sinkers
and piling them carefully into
the boxes. Chris worked fast.
The snow cracked and
crunched cheerfully underfoot,
and his breath came in white
smoky puffs from his puckered
lips as he whistled softly under
his breath.
Bamey went into the shack
for a last minute inspection.
The dampers were tumed, the
kindling laid by. A pot of soup
was standing on the back of
the stove. He hung the lantem
on a hook just inside the door,
picked up the lunch-box and
the blackened tin can for heat-
ing the tea. They were ready.
The dogs were whining softly
as if anxious to be off.
“Take it
easy, boys.
Quiet there,
Trigger,”
s c o 1 d e d
Barney.
“They are
like me Bar-
ney. Rarin’ to
go,” laughed
young Chris.
“ Y e s . ”
Bamey’s voice
was deep, and
his speech
was slow as
were his
movements.
He was no
longer young.
“I know I’m
crazy to give
in to you. It’s
foolhardy to start setting nets
with the centre of the lake still
open.”
“But the forecast says con-
tinued cold. It’ll be just a mat-
ter of days till the whole lake is
frozen. This means everything
to me, Barney.”
“Let’s cut the talk, Chris,
you’ve already won,” growled
Barney. He shook the sleigh to
make sure the runners were
not frozen to the ground. “You
are skating out, I guess.”
“Yes,” answered Christ,
“the load is heavy enough as it
is.”
“We’re off then. Mush,
boys, mush.”
The dogs set up a chorus of
barking, whic.h almost
drowned out the shrieking
protest of the snow, the creak-
ing of the sleigh and hamess,
and the merry silvery tinkle of
Trigger’s bell. The pace was
furious at first. Only long prac-
tice saved Barney from tum-
bling off the back of the tobog-
gan where he stood holding
onto the pile of boxes. After a
while the barking ceased, and
the speed slackened. Soon the
dogs were panting from the
unaccustomed exercise. There
was a little snow on the ice,
only a few slivers here and
there, chiselled by the wind.
Every little while a dog would
lose his feet and skid. But they
soon settled down to a steady
dog-trot, Trigger, his head held
high, setting the pace.
The merry whistle of Christ
cleaved the frosty air, then
floated back to Barney and
Ragnhildur and husband Stefan Guttormsson
walking down Portage Avenue in Winnipeg, ca. 1955.
mingled with the tinkle of
Trigger’s bell: “Heigh-ho!
Heigh-ho! As on to work we
go.”
But Barney’s lean, heavy-
boned face remained sombre.
Nearly thirty years experience
had taught him to be wary of
the elements. Yet young
Christ, just back from over-
seas, was so painfully eager “to
be doing an honest day’s work
again” and to be putting his
rehabilitation money to work
that Barney yielded to his
eagerness to begin. Chris had
worked for him during the
depression, then a stripling of
a lad and the only son of a
widow. He had paid him well,
better than he could afford,
but no matter, they needed it.
He was very fond of Chris, big,
red-haired, good-natured
Chris.
It was an ideal day for set-
ting nets. Chris shouldered the
ice pick and drove it into the
ice. The crisp ciystal chips flew
in all directions. The ice rang
to the touch of steel. The sun
spilled his beams over the rim
of the world and changed the
ice into a field of gold. When
the first hole was cut, Barney
plunged in the jigger and
worked the control rope while
Chris skated along following
the jigger to where the second
hole was to be cut. Then Chris
pulled under the first string of
nets while Barney fed them
into the hole from the box. It
was more like play than work.
“Are we going up to Stony
Point for lunch?” It was noon,
and they had already set half
of the nets
brought out in
the morning.
Chris looked
at Barney as he
asked the
q u e s t i o n .
There was a
sort of boyish
wishful eager-
ness about
him, as if this
was very
i m p o rta n t.
Barney nod-
ded his
approval.
“I’ll skate
ahead and
make the fire,”
and off he was
like a shot.
He had
only just made
the fire in a
sheltered spot
under a clump
of jack pine,
when Barney
came with the
dogs. He
looked up sur-
prised. “Your
dogs sure can
travel, Barney.”
“Trigger is beginning to feel
his years now. We both are.”
“Not you, Barney. But
Trigger is quite old for a dog.
You had him when I was with
you earlier.”
“Yes, I was training him the
second winter you were with
me. Joe Howard gave him to
me. He wanted to get rid of
him. I never thought he would
make a sleigh-dog.”
He still remembered what
Joe had said. “He’s going to be
too big a dog for the boy. Ann
thought maybe you could use
him.”
Ann—would he never be
able to forget Ann? Barney
whacked viciously at the
frozen fish he was cutting up
for the dogs. Chris was busy at
the fire. It bumed noisily with
a sputtering sound. The
resinous, pine-scented smoke
rose high into the still, clear
atmosphere like a prayer made
visible. Barney sat down near
the fire with a sigh of relief.
His eyes followed the column
of smoke, watched it melt into
the blue above. They seemed
to be sitting on the edge of the
world, you could not tell
where the lake ended and the
sky began, reality and infinity
became one. Chris handed
him a toasted sandwich on the
end of a stick. “This is it,
Bamey. This is what I’ve been .
dreaming about.”
Barney looked at him
quickly. There was a look of
exaltation on the boy’s face
which almost hurt.
“What do you mean?” he
asked a bit shortly.
“This clean, white peace. I
was in Normandy. You have
no idea what it was like. It was
a screaming, screeching, thun-
dering hell, where the
strongest of men went crazy.
But I knew there was a place
like this, and I was going back
to it. That kept me going, and
now I’m here.”
“Yeh,” said Barney weakly.
That was how he had felt too
when he came home from the
First World War, and where
did it get him? But you could
not deliberately cmsh the faith
of a kid like Chris, put your
foot on all his dreams, tell him
that what he was fighting in
Europe was here too, little tin
gods, each tooting his own lit-
tle hom, never caring one whit
for his neighbour.
“This is the best tea I ever
get,” said Chris, as he filled
their mugs to the brim from
the tin can which was steeping
in the warm ashes at the side
of the bonfire. “I only wish
Hannah could see this too,”
Chris’s voice was bashful, and
he even blushed.
Hannah—that was his girl.
The girl he was going to marry
when he had made all the
money necessary fishing.
Barney almost laughed out
loud, it was so ludicrous, yet
so sad. Just like his story.
When he came back from the
First World War, he was going
to make money fishing and
then marry Ann . . . Ann who
was now married to Joe
Howard, the president of the
Great Central Fishing
Corporation.
On the fourth day they
began to lift the nets. The frost
had been only moderate and
the weather calm; the working
conditions were ideal,
although the lake was still
open. Chris was in high spirits
and even succeeded at times
in thawing out Barney’s grim-
ness and making him forget
his fears.
But next day the south
winds came. A heavy gale
blew up at ten o’clock. By
noon it was almost a hurri-
cane. They were lifting nets
about two miles from camp,
and the catch was good;
around every net-hole was a
fringe of the yellowish silver-
grey victims, left there to
freeze, before being packed
into wooden boxes, ready for
marketing. The travelling over
the ice was extremely difficult
because of the high wind. The
ice under their very feet was
groaning and creaking like
some giant in distress.
Chris was pulling under the
last net before the noon-hour,
when the big crack came, a
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