EDDYSTONE, Man. – The fishing nets seem out of place on a farm where the buildings and equipment are devoted mainly to raising cattle.
Most of the nets are tucked away in a tiny green shed parked between cattle shelters, windbreaks and a stuccoed house accented with blue trim. Another cluster of netting, glazed with snow, hangs from the side of one of the outbuildings.
Morgan Sigurdson, the owner of this farm, makes most of his living from cattle. He enjoys that occupation.
He downplays his desire to fish by emphasizing the pains and perils of commercial fishing on Lake Manitoba in the wintertime, something he has done since boyhood.
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“You’re out there and your face is freezing and your hands are freezing. It’s not a fun job.”
But he cannot hide the fact that fishing is in his blood, a tradition passed down through generations of his forefathers. Each year when Lake Manitoba begins to freeze over, something compels him to start thinking again about the dawn of another fishing season.
“You’re anxious to get out there and do it.”
Such is the life of a descendant of Icelanders who migrated to the shores of Lake Manitoba about a century ago to find new opportunities. It was an area where they could ply their skill at fishing while also raising sheep and cattle.
Sigurdson knew before he finished school that the farm was where he wanted to be. The fishing went hand in hand with that. His ambitions were supported by his parents, Gudjon and Joy, who retired from farming only recently.
“I enjoy working with cattle more than anything,” said the younger Sigurdson, 33. “I would sooner work with cattle than people.”
He owns a commercial cattle herd and relies on fishing for added income. His fishing season begins Nov. 1 or as soon as Lake Manitoba freezes enough to support the weight of people and their fishing gear. He typically quits fishing before Christmas to begin preparing for calving season.
Fishing in the wintertime means boring holes through the ice, using either an ice auger or a pick. The nets are fed through the holes and draped out into the icy waters using a technique Sigurdson learned at an early age.
The lake, one of the largest in Manitoba, sits adjacent to his farm, a strand of trees marking where the land gives way to water. The walleye that he catches are sold through the local freshwater fish marketing board.
Some days the fishing is good. Other days, it’s not. His annual income from commercial fishing ranges from $3,000 to $10,000.
“One day you can go out and make a pile of money. The next day you won’t make anything.”
On this day, the sun is only an opaque glow in the sky. The weather is snapping cold and a cluster of Sigurdson’s heifers are hunkered in a shed bedded with straw.
A northwesterly wind shapes snow into finger drifts along the winding road leading to his farm.
The only creatures that seem oblivious to the cold are a pair of magpies that flit about the yard looking for food. Sigurdson’s remarks about the birds, and the difficulty of trying to bring them down with a gun are typical of the candour he applies to most aspects of his day-to-day life.
“They’re so goddammed smart, those buggers. You open the door and they’re gone.”
He already has the day’s chores done and is enjoying a cup of tea and the warmth of his home. A space heater tucked in a corner near the kitchen table adds to the warmth.
The house is immaculate, not quite what one might expect from a bachelor. An assortment of farmer’s caps adorn the hallway leading to the kitchen. The caps are remnants of a larger collection that Sigurdson’s father had when he lived there. Morgan views the hats as dust collectors, a further demonstration of his practical nature.
“Dad used to collect them years and years ago. When he left, I threw them all out.” Well, at least most of them.
Pictures of family members hang on the kitchen wall. The most striking is one of Sigurdson’s grandmother, riding in a boat, smiling and holding up a beer, as if making a toast.
Sigurdson’s cattle herd is built on a cross between Herefords and Simmentals. A good temperament is one of the traits that he finds in those cattle, and it’s a trait that he values: “You can’t have cattle that are going to kill you.”
His calving season starts in February. With more than 230 cows and heifers bred to calve, he will be kept on the run. He lives alone and hired help is hard to come by in his area. He’s banking on weekend help from a cousin to get through the long days and cold nights of checking on expectant mothers.
His strong build makes him equal to the task of harvesting forages, tending cattle and drawing fish from the lake. Testing his resolve, however, is uncertainty about what the future holds for cattle producers as they grapple with the consequences of two BSE discoveries in the past year, both linked to Alberta cattle herds.
Unhappy with the prices he could expect for his heifers, Sigurdson chose to hold them over the winter rather than sell them last fall. Some of the cows that he would normally have culled are also still on the farm. One of the only bright spots was the high price he was paid for his steers.
An added burden at his farm was drought last year, which slashed his forage production in half, forcing him to import more than 1,000 bales of straw and to feed more barley this winter to supplement the cattle rations.
Like everyone else, he is hoping the border will soon open to exports of Canadian live cattle so he can move livestock to market at a decent price. And like everyone else, he has been given no reliable answer as to when that might happen.
“I’ve got 120 heifer calves on feed and I don’t know what the hell to do with them…. The times are so depressing right now, it’s hard.”
Still, Sigurdson does not harbour ideas about chasing a different lifestyle. His determination to stay farming is as solid as his sturdy frame.
“There’s no turning back,” he said. “You can’t turn around now. You have to keep going.”
