A 1910 antique cash register clangs with every sale. Wind chimes greet every customer through the door. For the fourth-generation Tergesen running H.P. Tergesen & Sons General Market, that means it’s a good day. “I always teach little kids, I say, ‘This is why they call it ringing in a sale,’ because most cash registers aren’t ringing anymore,” said Stefan Tergesen with a smile, the owner of the store. Walking around the store, the hardwood creaks as people browse a large mix of clothing, books, kitchenware and knick-knacks for sale. Icelandic memorabilia, antiques and old photos grace the walls and shelves from a time long by since opening Jan. 1, 1899. “When I first took over, I somehow thought I was going to mess this up and we wouldn’t even make it to 100, but here we are 127 years and counting,” Tergesen said. Tergesen laughs thinking back to a time when his family first opened the shop in the 19th century. They believe it’s the oldest general store in western Canada. “It’s amazing that we’ve gotten here,” Tergesen said. “One of my jokes when the pandemic hit, I was just saying, ‘It’s not our first pandemic.’ We’ve done it before. We had smallpox through Gimli. We’ve been through wars and everything.” Tergesen said his great-grandfather Hans Pjetur Tergesen first arrived as an Icelandic settler in Gimli in 1887. By 1898, construction began at the corner of 1st Avenue and Centre Street where the building still stands today. “He really was a driving force in the area as time went on,” he said. “The store became a hub for people. The school and town hall had been here for a while. The dance hall was here. The cash register here is covered in match burns here because this was where the old man would stand out smoking.” Over the years, H.P. Tergesen & Sons General Market has experienced its fair share of change. In 1899, they sold everything from food and fabrics to hardware equipment. By the 1920s, the store expanded to a much larger footprint and still had its second floor attached to the building. “During the Great Depression, he actually let a lot of families just run tabs up because they couldn’t afford (it)”, Tergesen said. The store was ultimately divided over time into two sections with the next generation taking over. Stefan’s grandfather ran the traditional clothing and hardware, while his great uncle ran a pharmacy on the other side. Time marches on and Stefan takes over as a fourth-generation owner Tergesen said his father was key to helping the store transition ownership from his grandparents. It was Stefan’s older brother Soren, however, who originally showed the most interest in running the business before the current owner came into the picture. “As kids, you grew up with something next to you, we we’re just kind of taking it for granted,” he said. “As a little kid, this is where you came and got Double Bubble gum because my grandfather kept Double Bubble boxes on down the counter, and as kids, we were allowed to take as much as we liked. We spent our childhood with pockets full of gum and cavities.” By the 1980s, Soren Tergesen stepped in to run the business until he passed away suddenly in a car accident. Stefan stepped in to help in 1991 with little background knowledge in retail. “That was tough, because at that time I worked in restaurants,” he said. “I would work eight months and I would travel, so I was living a lifestyle where I was using up my retirement while I was young enough to enjoy it. I just drove down here and just sort of dealt with the disaster and stepped in right away because my parents were working with him, but they weren’t equipped to run a business.” Luckily, Tergesen said his knack for customer service gave him a boost when it came time to take the lead. By the 1990s, his mother Lorna was already a publisher’s distributor which helped build up the bookstore side that people know today. He said one of his first orders of business was to talk with existing shopkeepers in Gimli and learn what was drawing the summer clientele from Winnipeg to the community. “What’s going to bring people here?” Tergesen said. “We really worked on making this as diverse as possible. I have a business philosophy that I’ve gone by. That they say you can’t make everyone happy all the time, but nobody said you couldn’t try.” Generational appeal at Wanless General Store in northern Manitoba It’s not the only shop with generations of history. In northern Manitoba, travelers down Highway 10 have stopped at the general store in Wanless since 1940. It’s one of the only stops for kilometers between The Pas and Flin Flon. “We’ve got families that are third generations of their families that have been coming up here from different areas, right,” said Dylan Funk, owner of the Wanless General Store. Funk said he used to pump gas there when he was 13 years old. Back then, the store was known as BJ’s Trading Post, known for its wooden fortress look, greeting visitors on the side of the highway. “It’s special that we’re able to continue on that local small traditional family-run small business here up in the north,” Funk said. Funk took ownership with his wife in May 2025 and wanted to keep the similar log-cabin look outside of the store that had been in place for decades. Funk said places like this up north provide a critical service between communities that are sometimes hours apart by car. “You can get up in these remote areas and run into situations where you’ve run out of gas, or maybe got a flat tire, or maybe forgot some important supplies for your camping trip or fishing trip,” Funk said. “We enjoy being here to offer those services and then also help people when they might be in a jam. There’s been numerous times where I’ve jumped in my truck and ran a Jerry can of gas 15 minutes north of the highway because somebody was coming from Thompson and they weren’t going to make it all the way here.” As customers walk around the store, Funk said he has made an effort to stock Métis and Indigenous handmade items created by Manitoba makers from across the province. Dream catchers, bracelets, beaded earrings, mukluks and moccasins can all be found throughout the space joined by your everyday food and travel essentials. “When you stop in at these small local family-run businesses, you’re not just supporting the store, but you’re supporting a community and a lot of families around the area,” Funk said. “It’s just bringing stuff that you wouldn’t traditionally find in your typical convenience store. I just encourage anybody if you haven’t travelled further north, take the opportunity at some point you get up to northern Manitoba and see what it has to offer.” ‘Tons of memories’: Legacy lives on at Lockport Grocery & General Store Closer to Winnipeg, a western style façade filled with tools and Coca-Cola signage graces the regular customers at Lockport Grocery & General Store. Co-owner Kris Faires is continuing the legacy his parents started when they opened the space in 1982. “We were all born and bred into it,” Faires said. “Tons of memories, I basically grew up in this store.” While not as old as the store in Wanless or Gimli, Faires believes the original store was built in the late 1940s to early 1950s. A pool hall and barbershop joined the original space, an old painted white storefront which still stands next door to the current shop. Inside, Faires manages a liquor vendor, and carries everything from fishing gears, food to handmade barbecue sauces made in East St. Paul and Steinbach. He said what started as a destination spot in the summer has grown into a staple for people living in an area of the province that is growing. “I think that definitely goes to our success,” Faires said. “We got suppliers that are two kilometers away to a couple hundred kilometers away. (We’re) just trying to get a little bit of everything so we can cater to pretty much any customer that needs something. We definitely have some customers that’ve been probably coming here longer than I’ve been alive.” ‘An absolutely essential resource’: Manitoba Historical Society Gordon Goldsborough loves preserving history in Manitoba. Be it an old-grain elevator to a small country store, Goldsborough, the acting executive director and head researcher of the Manitoba Historical Society (MHS), told CTV News he enjoyed working in a general store in Sanford, Man. “I remember by the time I came on the scene, it was maybe not doing as well as it had in the past,” Goldsborough said. “I do remember, for example, the morgue upstairs. There was a second floor. They would put all the products that they hadn’t sold over the years, and boy, that was a who’s who of all kinds of interesting things. Occasionally you would sell things out of the morgue.” Goldsborough laughed as he recalled the memory of one customer asking for an oil filter for servicing an old tractor. He said people were drawn to the store he worked at based on the belief the general store had everything. “You wouldn’t happen to have one, would you?” he recalled the patron saying. “I go upstairs and oh, look at that, there’s an oil filter for it. They’d be so excited. I mean, they expect you have everything, and that’s of course possible if you have the means of one of the big superstores. But no, you’re just a little country store. You couldn’t be expected to have everything, but you did.” Nowadays, there are not as many general stores as there were when Goldsborough worked in Sanford. Before the days of big box stores and online retail, he said they were crucial to a community. “At one time they were an absolutely essential resource,” he said. “Those stores are the centre of the community. People go there, whether it’s to get a jug of milk, whether it’s to pick up their mail, whatever the reason, that’s where often community happens.” Goldsborough said it’s important general stores do not disappear from Manitoba maps. He said the MHS has catalogued 25 general stores in the province. Goldsborough said that number could be more or less, depending on the status of each building. Many have been torn down over the years, while others have become houses or even a coffee shop. “Unfortunately, when that goes, I think the community goes too,” Goldsborough said. Tergesen’s secret to success and looking toward the future Today, Stefan Tergesen’s store looks a lot different than it did when he first took the reins. His 88-year-old mother still oversees the bookstore with a smile and Stefan helps find new products to put on the shelves amongst the clothing and housewares. “It was easy to be passionate about it,” Tergesen said. “One of my jokes is that I never wanted a desk job, and I grew the business to the point where I have to sit at a desk all the time.” Tergesen said his store has remained a meeting place for the Gimli crowd for decades. He said they have been around long enough to get noticed by travel publications in other countries. “I remember I found my store listed in an Italian travel guide and things like that,” Tergesen said. “I’ve been at ski resorts and riding lifts by myself, and I mention where I’m from, and people say to me, ‘Oh, there’s a cool little store there’. I have people who — it’s a pilgrimage, almost, to get here at least once a year, kind of thing — which it feels really good.” Tergesen turned 65-year-old this month and said he is at the point where he is considering retirement. Though, It does not mean he wants to sell the fourth-generation business yet. He told CTV News he has already started asking extended relatives for their interest in keeping H.P. Tergesen & Sons General Market in the family. “I’m working on a cousin, seeing if he may be interested, he’s giving it some ponder,” Tergesen said. It also does not mean Tergesen does not love what he gets to do every day. Not every owner can say they are carrying on a legacy founded in the 19th century. “It’s one of those things that that gets you up in the morning and you come down here and you get that feeling of pride that we’re still doing this,” Tergesen said. “It just feels good when you come to work when you’re carrying something like that.” If you would like to share memories of a general store from your Manitoba community, send the store name and any other information you have to joseph.bernacki@bellmedia.ca.
