by Sharron Arksey
The Icelandic Roots Writers Group wrote about summer memories for their April assignment.
It was the first weekend in July; the year was 1964. My twin sisters and I, along with our parents, were going on an adventure. Our younger siblings, aged four, three and almost two, would stay home with our paternal Amma.
Our mother’s cousin was getting married in Eriksdale, MB and we older siblings (I was ten, my sisters were seven) would be there. We would stay overnight at the Eriksdale Hotel and the next day we would attend the annual Hayland picnic. Our mother spoke often of the baseball team her cousins played on and for the first time, we would get to watch our mother’s relatives play ball. To say we were excited would be an understatement.
Years later, I read Karen Emilson’s excellent novel Be Still the Water which is based in the Icelandic communities along the eastern shores of Lake Manitoba. It was only then I learned the significance of the Siglunes ball team. Until then I had only thought of the players as family, which is important to me but not necessarily to others.
According to the book Taming a Wilderness: A History of Ashern and District, the Siglunes Athletic Association began in the 1920s and lasted until the 1980s. The association had two goals: to organize an annual sports day for the school districts of Siglunes, Vogar, Hayland, Darwin and The Narrows, and to sponsor a local baseball team from those districts.
Team members were all farm boys who would practice on Sundays when they could take time off from farm work. They began playing in their mid-teens and kept going as long as their knees and other body parts allowed. In the beginning, they didn’t even have bats and balls and improvised with anything round for balls or wooden for bats they could find.
Over the decades they accumulated the proper equipment and skills were honed. By the 1950s, the Siglunes Seals were the team to beat.
In 1953, the team’s record was thirty-two wins and three losses. That year, the Seals won all three trophies available for open competition in Manitoba’s Interlake area—the Kirwin, Anderson and Drery Cups. The following year, they played twenty-six games and only lost one game.
It wasn’t only Interlake teams that they proved themselves against. They defeated
teams from Winnipeg, Dauphin, and Neepawa, among others. The Siglunes Sports Day, held each year on the first Sunday in July, attracted some of the top teams in the province and was consistently won by the home team. From 1953 to 1956, the Seals won their own tournament four times in a row.
In 1959, the Seals took first place at tournaments at Ashern, Grahamdale, and Siglunes, winning total prize money of $325. Those funds went into the coffers of the Siglunes Athletic Association to help pay for equipment and costs associated with the annual tournament. The team went on to play until the 1970s.
The successes of these years were not forgotten. In 2005, the Siglunes Seals (1953–59) were inducted into the Manitoba Baseball Hall of Fame. Hal Sveistrup accepted the award on behalf of the team at a ceremony held at Morden, MB. At that time, Hal was one of the ten remaining members of the team. He passed away in January 2024.
Names on the team’s roster did not change much over the course of the Seals’ heyday. The names found on Hall of Fame documentation include Sigfusson (4 family members), Sveistrup (3 players), Larson (3 players), Halldorson, Freeman, Johnson, Reykdal and Eggertson. Five of those eight surnames, ten individual players, are on my family tree. Almost all of them attended my wedding years later.
I suspect that many if not all of those players were also at the wedding we attended in 1964, since the bridegroom played shortstop for the team. I do not remember whether the Seals won or lost the games they played the next day; perhaps they were not in top form following the previous night’s celebration. Then again, maybe they were still riding high and at the top of their game.
There is another question I ask myself about that tournament. Was the bridegroom there? Did he postpone the honeymoon in order to not miss a highlight event of the year for his community? He died in 2012, but there are family members I could ask. It is one of those little mysteries that I would like to solve.
Editor's Note: The following list describes the players in the photo above:
Back Row: Flovent Sigfusson, Ivan Larson, Lorman Larson, Hermie Johnson, Skapti Sigfusson, George Demyer
Front Row: Hal Sviestrop, Charles Freeman, Gisli Sigfusson, Oscar SviestrupManager: Marvin Sveistrup
Missing: Eggert Eggertson, Keith Halldoorson, Herman Johnson, Ronald Larson, Stephen Reykdal, Sigmar Sigfusson, Kenneth Sveistrup, Dave Eggertson (manager)
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