The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2009, Qupperneq 29

Vol. 62 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
171
the Winnipeg Tribune, “...even if I could
change, I probably wouldn’t. We never
made much more than a living ... but it was
a good living.” And in that straightforward
way, Afi spoke for so many other men who
like him who made their living fishing Lake
Winnipeg from boyhood until their last
day. In those years fishing was tough and
making a living was not easy, but what I do
know for sure is that Afi and the fishermen
like him had a good life. Fishing was not a
job. It was their life. It was who they were.
For this self-taught man, there was one
teacher greater than any other and he
respected her beyond all else. Nature was
not to be fooled with, but listened to, not
resisted, always respected. Businesses
could come and go because of her.
Sometimes there was no way to predict it,
other times people might look back and see
the threats that they had missed right in
front of their faces. My Afi Malli’s biggest
fear was that one day the fishermen on
Lake Winnipeg would look back and won-
der why they were never more worried
about the possible effects of chemicals on
the waters. This topic incited his passions
more than any other. Long before it was
fashionable to be an environmentalist, Afi
was convinced, beyond any possible per-
suasive proof to the contrary, that chemi-
cals would ultimately prove to be the bane
of our collective exists. The front line of his
vigorous views on the topic was often his
niece, Marge Jones, while visiting on
Friday evening enroute from the bus ride
from Winnipeg, before making the balance
of the trip to Hecla. Marge had the misfor-
tune of working for the federal Department
of Agriculture and carried the burden of
defending, (as she most ably, and usually
amicably) did, the use of insecticides and
fertilizers on the prairie fields, which Afi
reasoned would ultimately find their way
from across the Canadian prairies into his
beloved waters and its fish. Afi was a wise
and prescient man.
The winds of change in the fishing
world of Lake Winnipeg blew hard in the
60’s .Fish stocks were collapsing. Prices
were poor. Dramatic change was needed; It
came with two barrels, one widely
embraced, and the other to utter disbelief.
In 1969, the Freshwater Fish Marketing
Corporation was created and took over the
marketing of all freshwater fish in the inte-
rior of Canada. Sigurdson Fisheries would
become the major agent of the Corporation
on Lake Winnipeg. Then fire burst out of
the other barrel." These damn scientists in
Ottawa have gone crazy,” my exasperated
father exclaimed in a call as I was beginning
law school in Toronto, and he went on
“They have shut the lake down because
they say there is mercury in the fish that
has come 800 miles down the Winnipeg
River. Flow in the hell is that damn stuff in
thermometers going to get all the way from
a pulp mill in Dryden Ontario to Warrens
Landing in the north end?” The lake was
closed for the better part of three years.
Afi’s worst fears about the insidious chem-
icals had been realized; and any suggestion
that mercury was really not a chemical but
a mineral was soon turned into mincemeat
with his usual verbal dexterity.
This combination of factors reconfig-
ured the fishery when it re-opened, but
good news followed near ruin with dramat-
ic increases in fish populations experienced
everywhere across the lake. New times
brought more changes. As agents for
Freshwater, Sigurdson Fisheries would
need a new kind of facility that could also
act as a receiving depot for fish .The Sig
Fish office was demolished to be replaced
by a long flat modern building covered in
blue tin. The symbol of an era evaporated
within a day.
If you were in the business of fishing
on Lake Winnipeg, you were in the trans-
Stefa 1A/
ARBORG UNITARIAN CHURCH
GIMLI UNITARIAN CHURCH
9 Rowand Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3J 2N4
Telephone: (204) 889-4746
E-mail: sjonasson@uua.org