Camp Kvutza hit the plains of Manitoba in the summer of 1941 when Canada was already at war and the "United States was still waiting for Pearl Harbor. It was David Biderman who wrought the miracle of Habonim in Winnipeg and set the stage for the first camp. The Winnipeg movement was young and vigorous then, and no one would have suspected that it came about as a sort of by-product of work for the Royal Canadian Air Force.
In one of those strange wartime transmutations, David Biderman, who had received a mining engineer's degree from McGill University in Montreal, changed overnight from an explorer of the earth's depths to an inspector of flight. He became a military aircraft inspector for the RCAF stationed in Winnipeg. The only clue to his earth-bound past was slyly concealed in his home address: He lived on Burrows Street in Winnipeg. But miner or airman, by temperament David Biderman was no one-job man; when he was through inspecting aircraft for the day, he went out to organize Habonim at night.
Once Winnipeg Habonim reached mahaneh status they could settle for nothing less than a Camp Kvutza of their own. Immediately a camp plan was drawn up and presented to the community. Only experienced campers would have balked at such a plan, but happily there were no experienced campers in Winnipeg and no one withheld his enthusiastic approval. Winnipeg's first Kvutza would be held at Calof's cottage in Gimli on the shores of Lake Winnipeg.
Gimli has changed considerably in recent years. There is a large RCAF airbase nearby, and the town itself is honeycombed with the cottages of Winnipeg vacationers. There were some summer cottages in 1941, but the town had not yet lost the Icelandic character of its original settlers. Blond, blue-eyed sons and daughters of Iceland dominated the village streets. There was a church of roughhewn stone authentic enough to have been transplanted from the old village back home. And the fishing boats that sailed Lake Winnipeg rather than the saltier North Atlantic nevertheless carried salty sailors and bore names taken from the old Norse sagas.
The camp site, Calof's cottage, was at the outskirts of Gimli, about two blocks from the lake and close by a public wooded area. The cottage itself was a one-story wooden building partly enclosed by an L-shaped screened porch. It was in no way distinguished from other cottages in the neighborhood, neither in appearance nor in the quarter-acre plot it occupied.
Appropriate to the camp site, the staff was small and hybrid. I was imported from New York to be rosh and factotum. Geulah Green was the registered nurse and lifeguard. Aliyah Kare was dean of arts and crafts and second in command of the kitchen. Mrs. Kasedy was cook-and a good one-and as a special dispensation she was permitted to bring along her son, Shimin, a bright-eyed youngster who was under age for camp. The business manager who commuted on weekends was Sully Spector. He used to drive up with David Biderman, special friend of the court.
When David and Sully arrived-no matter what the time of day-the whole camp, forty strong, turned out to greet them. The curious campers welcomed the distinguished guests, but special cheers were always reserved for the venerable Bar Mitzva, a black, high-topped Ford that made the weekly pilgrimage. The Ford often faltered but it never failed, and for Winnipeg Habonim it symbolized the indominable halutz spirit.
A fact not generally known is that the Gimli camp almost died in embryo and had it not been for the great democratic tradition of Iceland, most assuredly that would have been its fate. One day before the opening, the advance crew of three set to work pitching tents on the Calof lawn. The local constable (there was only one constable in Gimli and only one cell in the jail) dropped by to inform the workers that an ordinance forbade the pitching of tents within town limits. The tents could not go up without the mayor's approval.
That day I had a job on my hands. I ran around like Chicken Licken taking a census. The constable sent me to the mayor; the mayor, in his shirt-sleeves trimming a hedge, sent me to garner the opinions of the five councilmen. So, while tent-pegs were held in abeyance, I dashed from one councilman to another, quizzing each on his home ground Nielson in a tractor shed, Thors in a garage, Olafson in the general store, etc.-until the roll call was completed and breathlessly I could report the affirmative vote to the mayor. And from the mayor I brought word to the constable-and only then did the pegs go in and the first tent go up. That tent was not simply pitched, it was pitched according to law -democratic Icelandic law.
With the tents up and the campers covered, the season got under way. It is unlikely that campers anywhere lived more closely than the campers at Gimli. The advantages in the setup were priceless: No one could be out of earshot of the discussions. Even the cook in the kitchen could not escape them.
The camp had the usual trials and triumphs: rains that came and tents that fell, camp fires at the beach, tired kids, parents who were torn between their loyalty to Labor Zionism and their concern for the welfare of their children. There were frenched beds and a pillow fight that covered the grounds with feather-snow. There were earnest daydreams and the stubborn belief that somehow all of this was bringing everyone closer to Eretz Yisrael . . . Strangely enough, somehow it did.
Pinhas Rimon, 1957