Lögberg-Heimskringla - 04.03.1994, Blaðsíða 7

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 4. mars 1994 • b
Spealrlff^ of Storms, cont’i.
long, yet sharp, sound which
echoed and re-echoed through
the ice. Immediately a rift
appeared a few yards to the
west between them and the
island.
“Drop everything,” shouted
Barney. Chris did and came
running. The dogs were Iying
in the lee of a pile of fish-boxes
farther out on the ice. Barney
made a trumpet of his hands
and gave a loud whistle. A lot
depended on Trigger. Would
he understand? Would he be
able to straighten out the dogs?
Every minute counted, already
the glint of water could be seen
where the break was. Like the
veteran that he was, Trigger
rose to the occasion. A snarl
here, a push there, and he had
the team straightened out
heading for Bamey. Lucky they
had been unharnessed and
hitched to the toboggan. The
two men threw themselves on
the toboggan when the dogs
came alongside of them.
“Mush, Trigger,” panted
Barney. Trigger mushed. He
seemed to realize that it was do
or die.
“Hang onto the toboggan
whatever happens,” shouted
Barney, hoarsely. The wind
tore the words from his mouth.
They were at the open rift in
the ice now, but the gallant
Trigger did not hesitate. He
jumped over the widening rift
closely followed by his team-
mates. The cold spray stung the
faces of the two men as the
toboggan hustled over the gap
in the ice, but Barney halted
the dogs. Yards of open water
separated them from the ice-
floe on which they had been
standing only a short while
before. It was now fast drifting
towards the open lake.
Without speaking, Barney
walked to the head of the train.
He laid his big mitted hand for
a moment on Trigger’s head
and slid it along his back. The
mighty dog rose to his hind
legs and trust his snout close to
Barney’s face. The big red
tongue flicked across his cheek
in a mute caress. Then he was
again the dignified leader of
the team, the mater of the
pack. “Good boys, well done,”
muttered Bamey as he walked
back to the toboggan. They
seemed to understand, they
wagged their tails and whined
softly. Then they mushed on
towards camp.
For a while neither man
spoke. Barney’s face fooked
grim, while Chris’s young face
seemed suddenly drained of
life. The change stmck Bamey
as unbearable. There go out
nets and our fish, Chris,”
Bamey’s voice was gmff. “Let’s
render thanks that we are not
going too.”
“Yes, Barney, I know. And
all my fault. Wish I’d not been
so dead sure of my luck.”
Chris’s voice was humble, but
bitter also, and hopeless.
“I said let’s be thankful, kid,
and I mean thankful.”
“Yes, I know. But you’ve no
idea what this means to me.
Why, only last week I wrote
Hannah to say . . . Oh gosh,
Bamey . . . what can a fellow
do?”
“Do you think you are the
first and only one to lose?
Twenty-seven years ago I was
in exactly the same fix. I’d just
come back from the War, only
in those days they didn’t much
care what happened to you
when the fighting was over. I
put my little all in a fishing out-
fit, and I was stripped clean.
Only,” he added in a lower
voice, “I lost my girl too.”
“You . . . lost . . . your girl
too?” Chris spoke slowly stac-
cato fashion. “That could easily
happen to me too. You can’t
expect a girl to wait for your
forever.”
“We won’t let it happen to
you, Chris,” Bamey’s voice was
steady.
Chris laughed harshly. He
did not seem to have heard.
“History repeats itself, when
you put your faith in that God-
forsaken lake!”
“We should have waited,”
Bamey said quietly.
“That’s right, rub it in. It
was my fault. But since you
know so much, why did you
listen to me?” Chris was shout-
ing now, as if trying to outdo
the gale.
Barney did not answer at
once. They had reached the
camp, and he busied himself
with the dogs.
“Why, Barney?” he
demanded.
“If you’d asked me before
you put your rehabilitation
money into fishing equipment,
I’d have said, ‘No, don’t do it.
You’re beaten at that game
before you start.’ But you
didn’t ask me. You wrote and
asked to share my camp when
you’d bought your stuff.”
“If it’s that bad, why are you
in it? Why don’t you quit?”
Barney slowly raised him-
self up. “I don’t know. Habit, I
guess.” His voice was very
tired.
Continued next issue.
Holm makes a big impression
by W. D. Valgardson
Victoria, BC.
Bill Holm has come and
gone. Dropped out of
the sky like a gust of
fresh air and sunlight and
made everyone who came
into contact with him happi-
er.
Bill, as many of you know,
is large, bearded, and fills up
any space he enters. Even in
Victoria, he’s mistaken for
David Arnason. On his first
trip up the elevator at
Executive House some other
passengers looked him over
and said, “Are you Ice-
landic?” He suggested he
might be Chinese but finally
admitted that he was Ice-
landic. They then asked “Are
you David Arnason?” Now
that has to say something
about the recognizeability of
Icelanders even generations
after emigration and some-
thing about David Arnason.
But I’m not sure what. I knew
though, with that start, a
week with Bill Holm would
be interesting.
The second night Bill was
in Victoria, I took him and
some friends to the Herald
Street cafe. The Herald Street
cafe is the ldnd of place where
the venison is succulent, the
bouillabaisse comes in huge
covered bowls and the head
waiter has to use a cellular
phone to keep up with the
reservations. Not the kind of
place one expects to find
poets or short story writers.
More the young bro-
kers and real estate
agents. But the food
was good, the conver-
sation wonderful (Bill
decided to give us a
reading at one point)
and during dessert
our waitress said,
“Are you Bill Holm?”
Now, you have to
understand that Bill
Holm lives in Min-
neota, Minnesota.
That Victoria is a long
ways away. So to say I
sat with my pecan pie
half-way to my mouth
as I stared is an
understatement. Our
waitress then ex-
plained that she’d
seen Bill read in Win-
nipeg (everyone in Victoria
really comes from Winnipeg)
and that she was Icelandic-
Canadian. Her sister was a
writer and had read with Bill.
Life with Bill is like that.
He’s recognizable. Except for
David Arnason, there’s no
one on the planet you’d mis-
take for him.
For his evening lecture, Bill
really gave a performance. He
read his poetry and prose,
explained about box elder
bugs, life in Minneota, being
an Icelandic-American, and,
to top it all off played not only
ragtime but Lutheran hymns
as they might be played by
someone who wasn’t quite
musical. Afterwards we had
coffee and dessert for the sev-
enty people who attended and
it was a bit like old home
week. Keith Sigmundson was
there. So were Mr. and Mrs.
Ben Sivertz. I should have
stopped having a good time
and taken down their names.
There were people from Hecla
and Riverton and Arborg and
Gimli and who knows where
else. Bill sold a box of books.
As was to be expected when
the audience has so many
Western Icelanders in it, the
books were snapped up
immediately.
He gave a talk to Lorna
Crozier’s creative writing
poetry class. It was called, “Is
there a sleeping rattlesnake in
the spaces where words don’t
go all the way to the end of
the page?” Afterwards Bill
had lunch with Loma Crozier
and four of her senior poetry
students. His final seminar
was “Coming home crazy:
from China, Iceland, or even
North Dakota”. As with the
previous two presentations,
the room was packed.
Standing room only and the
conversation went on until we
were thrown out by a group of
students who were having a
class in the room the follow-
ing hour.
Everything takes time. But
gradually the Richard and
Margaret Beck Trust is mak-
ing fcelandic and Western
Icelandic literature, language
and culture better known. By
bringing in a wide variety of
speakers and performers, we
are reaching out to different
parts of society. More and
more people are making the
trip from Vancouver to join us
for these presentations. And
here, on the far westem edge
of Canada, the Trust is prov-
ing to be a focal point for all
those who have moved to
B.C. from the traditional set-
tlements on the prairies.
MESSUBOÐ
Fyrsta Lúterska
Kirkja
Pastor Ingthor I. Isfeld
1030 a.m. The Service followed by
Sunday School & Coffee hour.
First Lutheran Church
580 Victor St., Winnipeg, MB
R3G 1R2 Ph. 772-7444