The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2009, Qupperneq 24

166
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 62 #3
arches. Foundations were poured under the
direction of a local contractor, Kalli Vopni.
School principal, Peter Onysko, early in
what would be a remarkable 20 year career
of leadership and success, stood alongside
his senior students helping with the work.
Frost was coming and it looked like the
project would need to be postponed, when
the cry for the big final push came forth. A
solid volunteer force of carpenters, fisher-
men and farmers was mobilized under the
leadership of Oli Olafson who drove the
project to completion, except for the
wiring. The young electricians,
Benedictson, Collins, and Johnson ‘came to
the rescue’ and completed the enormous
amount of wiring needed for a building of
this magnitude. Building this rink was a
remarkable achievement for a community
of its size, at this time and undoubtedly one
of the very first communities in Manitoba
to do so.
The opening was made an even greater
success by the presence of the skaters from
the Winnipeg Winter Club. They were
Pickerel • Salmon • Crab
Shrimp • Goldeye •
Lobster • Hardfiskur
and more!
We pack for travel
596 Dufferin Avenue
589-3474
625 Pembina Hwy
h__________________6
there through the leadership of Solli
Thorvaldson, then a prominent Winnipeg
lawyer and soon to become a well known
Senator, but first and foremost, a son of
Riverton whose father Sveinn Thorvaldson
had been one of the cornerstones of the
community over many decades. That began
a long relationship between the Riverton
Ice Club and the Winnipeg Winter Club
which provided both the skating instruc-
tors and guest performers each year at the
annual carnivals. When my Afi opened the
fourth annual carnival on February 27,
1953 he was able to report that the rink
now had been further developed with the
addition of a time clock, bleachers and the
completion of the upstairs club rooms with
hard wood floors and drapes. Soon the
‘clubrooms’ were the home of everything
from the international organization of
country women known as the Women’s
Institute (the “WI”), to the social center of
the big bonspiels when the ice surface was
turned into an additional curling rink for
three days each year.
No childhood memory is more alive
than the endless hours I spent in that rink,
starting as a little boy where I waited my
turn on the bench for my skates to be tied
tight by Walter Kornick, the first caretaker.
Those were the days when the term care-
taker was tantamount to caregiver and in
Walter’s wake came Dori and Margaret
Bjornson, who were like surrogate mother
and father to most of the kids in the village.
Hockey was big in Riverton, very big, and
the Riverton Lions roared across the
Interlake, particularly roused as they
entered the arenas in the neighboring
towns of Arborg and Gimli. My typical
routine had me coaching the peewees after
school and playing hockey every night
from 7 to 11 each day of the week except
games on Friday night and Sunday evening.
No one escaped the clutches of the
Riverton Figure Skating Club and the
women like my mom Sylvia who ran it and
most certainly not the aspiring young
hockey players. I proudly made my debut
as Gus Gus the Mouse in Cinderella in the
carnival of 1954. Often I think it was figure
skating that taught us to skate powerfully,
erect and not bent over in typical hockey