The Icelandic Canadian - 01.11.2007, Síða 27

Vol. 61 #2
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
69
Memories of Riverton
As told by a French-Canadian Icelander
by Lu Olafson
One day in late August of 1944, as a
very determined young person, I got off
the train at the railway station in Riverton,
Manitoba. I was met by Thordis
Thompson, then Secretary-Treasurer of the
local School Board. She escorted me to my
boarding house, the home of Ninna and
Bob Page. Little did I dream that I would
spend the next 27 years of my life in
Riverton - and grow to love it and its many
Icelandic people.
Prior to this time I had only the
vaguest notion of Icelanders, supposing
them confined to Iceland. My life experi-
ence so far had not been particularly
worldly, having grown up and been edu-
cated exclusively in French-speaking com-
munities. Ironically, I may have been the
only French speaking school teacher
between Pine Dock and St. Boniface at the
time, but I was nevertheless warmly wel-
comed by these interesting and literate peo-
ple.
I quickly proceeded to launch my cho-
sen career, having inherited a love of teach-
ing from my mother and two olders sisters.
My first days in a classroom of 30 eight and
nine year old children were rather comical.
Unfamiliar with all things Icelandic caused
me to mispronounce their names, eliciting
much hilarity among the students. Finally I
brought home the roster and asked Ninna
to instruct me in pronunciation. It took a
while but I did eventually master it. Today
I have no difficulty whatsoever with
tongue-twisters like “Islendingadagurrin”
and names like “Arnheidur.”
In 1945 the war ended and servicemen
began returning from overseas. It was then
that I met Leslie, second son of Oddur and
Lina Olafson. We were married in June
1947. The following two decades were
taken up with homemaking and the raising
of three sons: Ryan, Floward and Craig.
Our big yard on the eastern edge of the
village became a magnet for the neighbour-
hood boys - the Olsons, Einarsons,
Johannsons and more Olafsons. The initial
attractions were a large sandbox and a
fancy swing set, to be eventually replaced
by a badminton set, baseball diamond and
a place to play kick-the-can - a game loose-
ly based on cricket. Needless to say, my
precious shrubs did not survive; only the
hardy spruce trees could endure.
In winter the driveway was used for
hockey practice, complete with a goalie net.
All three of our boys played hockey from
the age of seven to the end of high school.
This entailed driving them to practices and
to neighbouring towns for weekend games,
attending home games, and the care and
feeding of visiting teams. The first two
weeks of July the boys and their friends
had to be drivn to Hnausa dock for daily
swimming lessons. Another popular sum-
mer activity was little league baseball. I
used to think that hockey, swimming and
baseball mothers should be awarded
medals of their own for endurance, but in
retrospect, these were the best years and
certainly the most active.
Once our oldest son was old enough to
babysit in the evenings, I returned to one of
my favourite sports - curling. I also joined
the Women’s Institute which is an organi-
zation that did much to improve the com-
munity. At various times we sponsored fig-
ure skating, Red Cross swimming courses
and were instrumental in setting up region-
al libraries.
I served on the local school board for
several years, and in my spare time, learned
ot play Bridge and to square dance. While
taking part in all these activities, I was
never aware of any socio-economic snob-
bery. Riverton was a truly democratic
community as well as intellectual. Some of