The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2009, Síða 25

Vol. 62 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
167
style and therefore better stick handlers as
hockey players. It was the hockey triumph
of our own Reggie Leach who would rise
to NHL superstar status that would give
the village a new brand ‘The Home of the
Riverton Rifle.” Perhaps Reggie would not
have been able to move down the ice in
those smooth and mighty strides and drive
the puck to the net from just over the blue
line as he did in winning those NHL scor-
ing championships, without his years doing
edges and spinning and twirling about as a
figure skater.
Riverton was in love with the train as
soon as it made its debut in 1914. So much
so, that the centre of their community
efforts in the last few years has been the
restoration of the station. Some remarkable
projects provide an insight into why the
train touched Riverton's heart. Ben Holyk
with life-long passion for photography
pulled together a remarkable collection of
photos of the early years of the communi-
ty. The train was everyone's train. The sta-
tion became the centre of social life in the
community when the train pulled in each
night, and riding into Winnipeg was the
melting pot where conversation flowed and
relationships were built. The life of the
community also comes through in another
remarkable project spearheaded by
Margaret Wishnowski, Train Stories from
the Icelandic River. Here the stories from
so many, from a few lines to a couple of
pages, are drawn together in an amazing
collage that tells so much, so simply, and so
powerfully. Like Raymie Benedictson
recounting these poignant words, “I
remember the day, January 22, 1945, when
I walked my brother to the Station early in
the morning. He was leaving for overseas
after his embarkation leave. I never saw
him again.”
The Sigurdson Fisheries office, Sig
Fish as everyone called it, was on the main
street of Riverton. It was action central of
the fishing world. The office was on a large
piece of property along the Icelandic River,
just south of where the three founders, Afi,
Steve, and S.R. Sigurdson lived in the
“three houses.” Continuing south across
the road you entered the Municipality of
Bifrost where Dad bought three acres of
land from John Eyolfson, which enabled
him to get a Veterans Land Act loan to
build the house where I grew up. Behind
the office was the “big garage” where all
the machinery-related work was undertak-
en, with nets and stuff stored upstairs. At
the south end of the property was another
sizeable building, the grey tin oil shed
where the 45 gallon gasoline drums were
stored, fronted by a large loading deck
where the trucks pulled up to deliver and
receive gasoline and diesel.
The office didn’t look exactly how you
might imagine a house of commerce, but
that was very much what it was with an
endless stream of activity always pouring
through the front doors. It was bigger
inside than it looked from the street, with a
warehouse at the back, a storage area
upstairs, and the main open office area in
front, with two solid wooden desks. A tall
counter greeted you as you came in the
front door and a huge black safe dominat-
ed the far wall beside the two-way radio.
The safe was always open during the day,
and closed each night when the books of
account and ledgers were returned to safe-
keeping, shut tight with a spin of the clum-
sy-looking combination lock.
In the darkness of a winter morning,
when Dad went in to open up, it was dark,
freezing and slightly creepy. The big
brown oil heater that stood along the main
wall, taking up more than its fair share of
space, got grumpy from time to time and
the smell of heating oil permeated every-
thing, making me nauseous. But it soon
warmed up, and when it was bustling with
people and talk and action, as it almost
always was, the Sig Fish office was warm
and inviting.
To the left as you walked past the
counter was a small front office - I guess in
today’s terms it would be the CEO’s office
-in my day it was seldom used, and most
often, the door closed. This was Afi S.V.’s
office, and had been since the day the place
was built, but he was almost always away
in those years at a Monarch Construction
job site somewhere in the province build-
ing roads and ditches. When he was not
there, there was always a lonely, empty
feeling inside, but when he was in, it was a