The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2009, Qupperneq 31

Vol. 62 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
173
music; it was deeply embedded within
every home in the community in different
ways. Nothing better epitomized the
“mustang” spirit that was always just
below the surface in the community, than
that remarkable annual event known as the
New Year’s Eve dance. The hall would
burst out well beyond its capacity as the
entire village, young and old were all there,
as well as people from the surrounding
Ukrainian settlements at Shornclifffe and
Ledwyn and often a substantial contingent
from Hecla, crowding into one place, a
typical community hall by most standards,
but later enlarged with an adjacent wing to
accommodate the numbers. The odd strag-
gler also showed up from Arborg and
Gimli, trying to horn in on the action and
pick up a lively Riverton girl.
The parties had been at full blossom
for hours by the time the dance floor was in
full flight as the clock snuck up on mid-
night. Johnny and his Musical Mates were
reaching a crescendo, as Johnny, with his
brother Chris and the Johanneson family
members beside him, waltzed and polkaed
the community across the decades and
through the generations. Johnny and Chris
seemed timeless, refreshed by succeeding
generations of the family from time to
time. This was “a night in the old town” for
old-style dancing - no holds barred and
usually that meant a tussle or a scrap of one
kind or another as frustrations and booze
washed out the old year and rambunctious
energy ushered in the new. But no sooner
had the scuffle started than it ended, either
with the protagonists thrown outside to do
whatever they were determined to do or
with the exuberance of the dance floor sim-
ply washing the scuffle into the frenzy of
swirling feet below.
Music ran deep within the fibre of
Riverton, down through families and
across generations. But Rome, in the
Riverton world of music, was the
Johanneson family, for all roads seemed to
lead there, through circuitous routes of
family and friendship. Music oozed out of
this incredible family, with bench strength
that grew with every birthday. Their spirit
infected others in the community and that
spirit spread out across New Iceland.
The tradition sprang from solid roots,
for before the Musical Mates, Gutti
Guttormsson’s band had been the ignition.
Then, in the 60s a new player entered the
scene -the Whisky Jacks, under the leader-
ship of Solli Sigurdson, a PhD in one hand
and a guitar in the other and the decade of
the Hootenanny and sold-out halls was
born. The signature pieces were always
Solli's songs of the lake - ballads that got to
the core of the people and the times - cap-
tured forever in an album, “The Lake
Winnipeg Fishermen,” that has its spot in
almost every home in the Interlake with
any connection to the fishery. The boys
were all there alongside Solli - Cliff
Lindstrom, Wesley Wilson, Dennis Olson,
Haraldur Bjornson, Freddie and Brian
Oleson, Roy and Earl Gudmundsson, and
the rose among the thorns, Laura Dahlman.
Soon they professionalized, with the addi-
tion of Riverton’s own Ed Sullivan, as
Roddy Palson blasted onto the stage.
The Riverton spirit moved down the
road to Gimli during the Icelandic
Celebration, where Johnny and His
Musical Mates were an institution at the
Monday night dance, a ritual as integral to
the festival as the traditional program. In
the Hootenanny days, the Whisky Jacks
were in full flight warbling and roaring to a
packed house. The Fine Country Folk fol-
lowed soon after and in their wake the Fine
Country Kids. Performing on the main
stage, the Kids (anchored again by the
Johanneson prodigies) enamored them-
selves to the Icelanders in the audience and
soon found themselves performing in
Reykjavik. And in later years, much later,
Brian and Freddie would take their brand
of music into Gimli Betel every Friday
night, to the great pleasure of the residents,
among who were their Mom and Dad, Kari
and Emily Oleson.
This was the Riverton way and music
was the voice. In 1994, the Hootenanny
celebrated its 30th anniversary with a cele-
bration of music in the life of the commu-
nity and as a testimonial to those who had
left the ranks of its great musicians far too
early. Roddy “Sullivan” was at the podium,
the performers from across the generations
were strutting on the stage, and amidst the