It was the day before Christmas, 1957. I had just gotten off the bus at Central Bakery - home for the holidays from United College in Winnipeg. Although my term had finished the first week in December, I was lucky enough to get a part time job sorting mail at the old post office on Portage Avenue. In those days everyone sent a Christmas card. The cards came by the dump truck load to be sorted for delivery. I was grateful for the job, but now happy to be home. My father met me at the ‘bus stop’ and said we are going to stop at Betel to see Amma.
 
Betel had started life as the Lakeview Hotel. When the property became available, a group of forward-thinking Ladies of the First Lutheran Church in Winnipeg were miraculously able to purchase it and on March 1, 1915, to establish a Seniors’ Home.

After visiting with Amma, we were making our way to the front doors of Betel when my father, who had been carrying a large bag, stopped in the dining room to visit two senior men residents. One had a fiddle and the other an accordion. Both greeted my father and me warmly in Icelandic. My father then produced a “mickey” from inside his coat and offered a Christmas toast to the two gentlemen. After the usual salutations, they offered to play us a tune. My father then opened the bag he was carrying to reveal a string of hardfish.
 
The early settlers of Gimli were very familiar with hardfish. They had cured cod in their native Iceland as a food source for centuries. No doubt the first fish from Lake Winnipeg that they would have cured would have been the lowly mariah. This much disparaged fish looks like a cod. Even today it makes good hardfish. When smoked, it tastes like salmon. However, as pickerel was more plentiful, it became the fish of choice for hardfish. Usually only small pickerel or sauger were used as the frugal fishermen would market the larger fish.
 
Hardfish is made in early spring or late fall to avoid the fly season. The fish is prepared by first head-lessing, and then dressing the carcass. The back bone is removed to the tail, leaving the two fillets joined. The fish is then left to soak in salt water over night and after that it is washed and hung to dry in a high windy place - usually on top of an ice house – for many days.

This particular hardfish that was brought to Betel, was cured by my brother Robert at our fall station at Albert’s Point. After curing, the fish is as hard as steel. Eating is accomplished by hammering it into a pulp, then tearing of strips of the flesh with your teeth. Our two friendly musicians in the dining room had neither a hammer nor any teeth. So they put the hardfish under the runners of their rocking chairs and they began to play. And rock. My father, who had a marvelous voice and knew all the old Icelandic songs, started to sing. Residents, staff and cats came from everywhere. (I think that the cats were drawn not by the power of the music but by the powerful aroma of the hardfish.)  

In those days there wasn’t the easy access to entertainment that there is today. This impromptu Icelandic concert was a real treat. My father sang. I handed out hardfish. And the staff produced a wooden mallet to pulverize the fish for those who did not rock. The musicians never lost a beat and after half an hour, with hugs all around and promises to return often, we left them to enjoy the hardfish, suitably softened in four four time beneath the runners of those old-time rockers.
 
Once in the car my father asked if I had saved a piece for us. I had kept a few pieces - hardfish goes best with butter, beer and good conversation and that Christmas Eve, we enjoyed them all.
 
Dec 2013