The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2009, Síða 26

168
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 62 #3
beehive, with Pal, his faithful cocker
spaniel, always in the middle of the action.
Under the glass cover on the wooden desk
that took over much of the office, were
Lake pictures of people and stations and a
litany of vessels that have passed through
the family hands over the years, many of
which had gone down in a Lake Winnipeg
storm. Adorning the main wall in an ele-
gant frame was a large portrait of my great
grandfather Stefan, who as a boy of 18 at
Hecla, had been part of the beginning of
the commercialization of fisheries on Lake
Winnipeg and the family’s entry into the
fish business. Stefan, a larger than life figure
who was a major force in business and the
life of New Iceland at the beginning of the
last century, was heard to exclaim when he
missed the train, “That’s the damn problem
when you don’t own everything yourself,”
an epitaph now enshrined among the pages
of Train Stones.
The desks weren’t the only semi-per-
manent fixtures in the office. My Dad,
Stefan, sat at the desk closest to the
counter. Les Peaker sat at the back desk, a
remarkable man who exuded a quiet digni-
ty and great competence. Once his name
had graced the marquees of many of the
huge elevators in prairie grain towns, but
Peaker Grain, like many others, suc-
cumbed to the clutches of the banks in the
thirties. Suddenly Les was on the streets
looking for a job, widowed with two boys
and a new wife at home. A friend told Afi
about the abilities Les could bring to any
business and in 1942, he found himself sit-
ting behind that big desk in the Sig Fish
office, where he remained for over twenty
years and Aileen, always Mrs. Peaker,
became a fixture in the High School as a
beloved English teacher.
Fish, not grain, would become the
focus of Les’s world. He was the financial
and administrative centre of the various
operations that circulated around the fish-
ing business, for it seemed that when you
were in the fish business you were in every
business, running the books and the
administration of the fish company,
Monarch Construction, the Lake Winnipeg
Fur Farm, the Gimli Hotel, the Allis-
•czsoe/
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