Manitoba’s top rowers and paddlers

In the summer of 2022, Memories of Sport jumped into the water to remember our province’s most successful swimmers and divers. All have been inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame for their accomplishments.

The list begins with diver Judy Moss, who was part of the first induction class in 1990. Another diver Janet Nutter joined in the Hall in 1986. The swimmers include Vivian (King) Thompson (1984), Cay Kerr (1985), and 1991 inductees Ethel (Gilbert) Bieber and Bob Hamerton. Swimmer Shannon Shakespeare was honoured in 2013 and Rhiannon Leier Blacher in 2016. As part of a large veterans’ induction class, Vera (Tustin) Gilbert was inducted in 2019. She had dominated in the pool provincially in the 1920s and later coached at the Women’s Amateur Swim Club where two of her students were Thompson and Kerr. The Hall also has honoured Paralympian swimmers Tim McIsaac, Joanne (Mucz) Vergara and Kirby Cote.

At the time, Memories of Sport promised to remember the top rowers and paddlers in a future column. That time has arrived. The best person to start is with Theo Dubois, who was inducted as a rower with the second HOF class in 1981. He joined the Winnipeg Rowing Club in 1936 at age 14 and remained an active member until he was 90. After he won both the U.S. and Canadian amateur championships in 1941, he was named Canada’s top athlete of the year.

Conrad S. Riley (1982) helped Winnipeg Rowing Club (WRC) teams win both the intermediate and senior eights at the U.S. championships in 1902 and in 1910 was a member of the WRC team that won at the Royal Henley Regatta in England. He was a member of the 1903 WRC senior eights team that was inducted in 2004. His son, J. Derek Riley (2009), won seven Northwest International Rowing Association crowns beginning in 1950 and qualified for the 1952 Summer Olympics in Finland.

In 1930, WRC members and cousins Elswood Bole and Robert Richards (1988) won gold in double sculls at the first British Empire Games in Hamilton, Ont. Matlock’s Colleen Miller was inducted in 1998 in recognition of her successful rowing career that included winning three consecutive world championships in double sculls from 1993 to 1995 with partner Wendy Wiebe. A 2015 inductee, Jeff Powell was a member of Canada’s world champion eights team in 2002 and 2003. The team went on to win silver at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Greece. Powell became the CEO of Rowing Canada this year. Don Hornby, a former Rowing Canada president, was inducted into the HOF as a builder in 2019.

A 1983 paddling inductee, Doug Groff won Canadian junior, intermediate and senior Canadian championships between 1932 and 1937. He also was a member of the Winnipeg Canoe Club team (2019) that won the grand aggregate at the Canadian Canoe Championships in 1937. Bill Brigden (1992) dominated individually at the Canadian championships in 1950 and 1951 and competed in the double blade event with partner Jim Nickel at the 1952 Summer Olympics.

In 1967 as part of Canada’s Centennial celebrations, teams representing eight provinces and two territories spent 104 days paddling across the country. When the race called the Centennial Voyageur Canoe Pageant ended at Expo ’67 in Montreal on the St. Lawrence River, the nine-member Manitoba team was victorious. The Manitobans had the lowest total time beating British Columbia by more than two hours. The team was led by captain Norm Crerar and Gib McEachern, who won the Trout Festival Canoe Derby in their hometown of Flin Flon nine times. Wayne Soltys and David Wells were from Flin Flon and John Norman lived next door in Creighton, Sask. Roger Carriere came from Cranberry Portage 40 miles south of the mining community and John Michelle was from Sturgeon Landing just across the Saskatchewan border.

Winnipeg was represented by university student Blair Harvey, a Flin Flon Canoe Club alumnus, and Don Starkell, who was inducted in the Sports Hall in 2006 as an individual athlete. He got his start at the Kildonan Canoe Club and is best known for his epic journeys paddling to the Amazon and to the Arctic. The Manitoba team led by chief voyageur Jim Rheaume of Flin Flon was inducted into the HOF in 2010.