The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2003, Side 42

84
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 58 #2
mill and crooked house stood. She has no
interest in other Winnipeg news.
As soon as O’Brian had bought the
crooked house, he began to remodel it. It
was painted and plastered. The basement
was fixed up. Walls were built and the
rooms on the main floor where remodeled
to a great extent. Later it was changed to a
grocery store and the owner was an O’
Hara if I remember right. O’Brian rented
an apartment there, but not the one
upstairs while Solrun lived there. When she
moved away for good the store closed.
Then a carpenter named Williamson rented
the entire building. He had his workshop
downstairs and lived upstairs. In 1905
O’Brian sold the house and lot for a good
profit. Then the old, out of the way,
crooked house was torn down and another
fine building erected in its place.
I have this to say about Bjorn, Solrun’
s boarder, that was one of those men that
set off in the gold rush to the Yukon in
March of 1898. He was considered a man
among men on that trip. He rescued two
men from an avalanche in the Chilkoot
Pass and was himself nearly drowned in
Lake La Barge. He finally reached Dawson
and worked at mining and wood cutting
for two years. He was no richer when he
returned to Winnipeg than when he left.
O’Brian told him he had gone too far to
search for gold, as the best and richest gold
mines were here in Manitoba in his own
backyard. All that needed to be done was
to plough the land and plant wheat, and
gold would soon be in his hands. Bjorn
accepted this counsel and quickly settled
on good farmland a fair distance down the
plains, plowed, sowed and reaped with
good results. He then got married, had a
son and a daughter and saw to it that they
got a good education. He bought a large
strip of the best wheatland and became a
large farm owner, highly esteemed, and
realized at last that he had indeed found a
rich gold mine—had found the hidden trea-
sure that nature intends for every young
man who has the spirit and ambition to

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