Nestor Falls curling celebrates 50 years

NESTOR FALLS—The Nestor Falls Curling Club is celebrating a golden anniversary.
This weekend (Jan. 19-21) marks the 50th year curlers from across
Northwestern Ontario and Manitoba will compete at the club’s annual open bonspiel.
In the half-century the event has been held, one local family has played an integral role in planning, organizing, and ensuring the event enjoys success year after year.
Les Helliar and his son, Glen, have been pillars within the club, working tirelessly to ensure its survival.
“They sure do an awful lot of work,” club board member Sheila Brown said. “They help out with the bonspiels. They make the draws up.
“They do a lot of the work behind the scenes that people don’t realize,” she added. “They are always there to lend a hand.
“It’s just been a part of them forever.”
Les Helliar has been an active member of the club since its inception in 1957. Now 70 years old, the eldest member of the Helliar clan is the only founding member of the Nestor Falls Curling Club who stills curls on a regular basis.
“I can’t think of anybody who’s been there since the first year,” he said. “There’s hardly anybody else left who are still curling.
“There’s still some people around who played there for years but who don’t play there any more.”
During his half-century involvement with the club, Les Helliar has filled just about every possible position on its executive.
“I was secretary for a while. I can’t remember whether I’ve been president or not,” he said with a laugh.
“Everybody has, so probably.”
Throughout the years, Les Helliar has seen the sport evolve from its early amateur beginnings—the biggest change coinciding with the creation of a professional curling circuit.
“Curling has changed quite a bit in some ways,” he remarked. “It used to be that everyone was an amateur and just curling for the fun of it.
“Now you have a group of curlers in Canada that curl for bucks, the ones you see on TV,” he added. “We didn’t used to have that.”
Closer to home, Les Helliar also has witnessed a great number of changes within the local curling community—most notably in the number of people who partake in the sport.
“The last few years there’s actually been a little less interest,” he said.
“If you remember back in ’57 there was no satellite TV. Snowmachines were barely invented and nobody thought much about ice-fishing at that time,” he noted.
“Curling was the big thing back then.”
The declining numbers also have meant a shift in the atmosphere surrounding the games. According to Helliar, today’s game is more about having a good time than it is about winning.
“It’s more of a social thing now,” he remarked. “Years ago, it was more of a tough competition.
“We still play fairly hard when we’re playing, but one of the reasons it’s so popular out here is because it’s a fun time.”
But while curling may have changed a great deal over the years in Nestor Falls, one thing remains the same—the ice on which the teams at the Nestor Falls Bonspiel compete.
In an age where artificial ice is the norm, the Nestor Falls Curling Club is unique in that it still employs good old-fashioned natural ice.
For each of the past 25 years, Glen Helliar has been tasked with the responsibility of making the ice and maintaining it throughout the winter.
The younger Helliar assumed his ice-making duties during his final year at Fort High. One of his teachers, Gord Taggart, arranged for Glen to do the work as part of the Work Experience program.
He’s been doing the job every year since.
It’s a job that’s labour intensive, but something Glen Helliar relishes doing.
First, he sprays the sand bottom with water until a seal is created. He then levels the ice before painting the entire sheet white.
Another layer of water is then applied and permitted to dry before he hand paints the circles—a process that takes two days for Glen Helliar to complete by himself.
Once the rings are painted, another layer of ice is applied before the ribbons—used for the lines—are placed. A final layer of water then is applied and allowed to freeze before the ice is ready to be used for competition.
The hardest part of Glen Helliar’s job is often getting Mother Nature to accommodate his schedule—as was the case this year.
“This year hasn’t been too bad,” he remarked. “I would have been done earlier if there hadn’t been that slowdown there.”
Les and Glen Helliar are teaming up this year—as they have in years past—and will be among the field of 32 rinks vying for the bonspiel title this weekend.
“I’ve always really enjoyed curling with my sons,” Les Helliar said. “My older son, his knees aren’t so good any more so I don’t think he’s going to curl.
“He was probably the best of the bunch of us, that’s the worst of it.”
Several other activities also will be taking place as part of this weekend’s bonspiel.
There will be live entertainment both Friday and Saturday night. A pancake breakfast will be served Saturday morning and a barbecue dinner Saturday night.
A Calcutta auction also will take place at Saturday’s dinner.