Lögberg-Heimskringla - 19.11.2004, Blaðsíða 15

V
Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 19. nóvember 2004 • 15
Trent Hirst picks the ball from the scrum and runs with it.
The Rugby Vikings
The Wanderers Rugby
Football Club in Selkirk boasts
four players of Icelandic
descent, all of whom have been
with the team for more than
five years. They are Ryan
Erickson (flanker), Travis
Lavalee (fullback), Trent Hirst
(8 man) and Brad Hirst (prop
forward).
All but Brad also played
with this year’s Manitoba Buf-
lalo provincial team. He has
piayed Ibr this team as well in
past years.
The Wanderers have had a
good season, going undefeated
with 14 wins and no losses,
making thern only the third
team in Manitoba Rugby
Union history to do so. They
also won a Men’s lst Division
title for the first time since
1989.
This has been a real tum-
around for the Wanderers. “We
did not always have a strong
team,” says Brad Hirst. “In the
last few years, we began to get
better, but a few years ago we
were being beaten 100-0 and
not winning any games. So it is
really nice to have gone from
one extreme to the next.”
Rugby season is now over
for the year in Manitoba.
Brad Hirst lifts up Mike Menard in a line out. “We usuallý
brag to our teammates about our great strength and how no
one can match strength with us Icelanders,” says Brad. “We
all have a good laugh and then we prove it to them by either
lifting heavy things, or heavy people around us.”
A familiar sight in the area
Pawlo (Paul) Pelech
emigrated from Poland to
Canada in 1927 and home-
steaded in Hnausa a few
years later. Dolores Bjorn-
son tells the following
story about him in the
newly published book,
Hnausa Reflections: A His-
tory of the Breiðavík Dis-
trict:
“He would impress
friends with his speed and
agility as a skater. Since he
remained a bachelor all his
life, he developed a fair
level of skill in the
kitchen... He never owned a
tractor or any other equip-
ment, relying on his neigh-
bours to help him with the
haying. Paul’s transporta-
tion was his bicycle. He
was a familiar sight in the
area, riding to town balanc-
ing a full cream can on the
crossbar of his bicycle. In
good weather he’d travel to
Riverton for groceries.
Sometimes he’d stop at the
bar for a couple of ‘cold
ones’ before heading home.
His trail leading home told
the tale of how thirsty he
was that day. For many
years, if you ever saw a
small man dressed in dark
clothing coming down the
road on a bicycle, with a
smile on his face, a hand-
rolled cigarette pressed
between his lips, and hum-
ming a tune, it was proba-
bly Paul.”
Dolores Bjornson is
retired and lives in River-
ton.
Thc; #
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