Gregg Ernst: Bringing Back the Backlift – Iron Game History – September, 1993

Late one afternoon this past summer, Jan and I left our cozy island home off the coast of Nova Scotia for the three mile trip to the mainland. There was rain falling and more rain forecast and it was “thickafog,” too, as the islanders say-just the sort of night to stay indoors with a good book. But we had to make the trip. History beckoned, in the form of a long-haired, short-coupled dairy farmer from just across the bay in Lunenburg-Gregg Ernst by name-who planned to lift more weight at one time than any man had ever lifted in a fully documented manner.