Lögberg-Heimskringla - 26.11.1964, Page 5

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5
The Saga Of 'New Iceland'
Framhald frá bls. 4.
his Icelandic friends. He was
9
appointed. by the Canadian
Government to lead them to
the “promised land,” while
Sigtryggur Jónasson went to
Iceland to induce more people
to emigrate to Canada.
It was fall by the time these
hardy pioneers were ready to
set out once more. They
went by steamer to Duluth,
then overland by ox-teams to
Fishers Landing in Minne-
sota, and north on the Red
River to Winnipeg on a
crowded stern-wheeler. It
was on this trip that, accord-
ing to tradition, the name for
the future capital of their
colony on Lake Winnipeg
was decided upon. Their hope
for the future was shown in
their choice of a name from
The Poetic Edda, Gimli,
home of the happy, where
stands “a hall fairer than the
sun, roofed with gold.”
The first years at Gimli
were anything but happy for
them. Upon landing at Winni-
peg they met their first disap-
pointment. They learned that
there was no hay available in
“New Iceland” and therefore
it was useless to buy any
cows. At least for the first
year there would be no milk
available in the colony, not
even for the children. On
learning this, many of the
settlers felt inclined to go no
farther. In fact, fifty of them,
mostly young girls, who hired
out as domestics, and unat-
tached young men, stayed on
and formed the nucleus of
the Winnipeg Icelandic col-
ony, today the center of Ice-
landic culture in America.
But men with families were
forced to continue the
journey; otherwise the Gov-
ernment refused to grant
them the necessary loan for
settling. After resting at the
Immigration House in Winni-
peg, and purchasing food
supplies and equipment, the
party proceeded down the
Red River in a York boat and
several flatboats which they
purchased. These latter, very
frail craft, were mere boxes,
usually employed for trans-
porting wood and never in-
tended for paSsenger service.
The Icelanders, unaccustomec
to steering them, often ran
them aground on rocks or in
shallows. When it came to
running the St. Andrews
Rapids, many of the pas-
sengers preferred to get out
and walk on shore rather
than risk drowning in the
river. Beyond the rapids the
steamer Colville met the
flotilla and towed it in a calm
to the mouth of the Red River
at Lake Winnipeg. From there
the settlers sailed to the west
shore of the lake where the
town of Gimli now stands, ar-
LÖGBERG-HEIMSKRINGLA, FIMMTUDAGINN 26. NÓVEMBER 1964
Um fæðingarstað Leifs heppna
riving safely in their new
lome on the 22nd day of
October, in the year 1875, the
last day of summer accord-
ing to the Icelandic calendar.
The next day they woke up
to find that winter had over-
taken them. It was snowing.
There were no shelters except
the flatboats they had come
in and some old ragged tents
loaned from the Hudson Bay
Company. They had to set to
work at once, in the snow,
felling trees for their homes.
First they put up a large
storehouse for the supplies
Rev. Jón Bjarnason
bought in Winnipeg. Then
they built log cabins for
themselves, including a large,
two-story one for John Taylor
and his family. But they
could only bring a limited
number of stoves along and
consequently were limited in
the- number of cabins they
could build. Several families
had to share each cabin, small
though they must be.
That winter was a terrible
one in the cramped quartérs
and the cold. To their dismay,
the settlers found that the
temperatures on the shores
of Lake Winnipeg were much
lower than those in their
homeland. In Iceland the
weather is very changeable,
with sudden blinding bliz-
zards, followed by thaws and
then frost which covers the
land with an icy coating. But
there temperatures were not
very low. In western Canada,
on the contrary, the thermo-
meter often dropped to 40 be-
low zero and the lake froze
over. And the first winter
turned out to be one of the
very coldest.
To add to the woes of the
settlers, the food which they
bought in Winnipeg, at high
prices, proved to be of poor
quality—the beans wormy,
the pemmican spoiled, the
wheat and flour old and taste-
less. The only available fresh
food was the fish in the lake,
and the immigrants were
neither equipped for nor ac-
customed to fishing through
the ice which soon covered
its surface. Consequently the
catch was poor. And they
sorely felt the lack of fresh
milk. By spring scurvy broke
out, taking several lives.
The survivors of the first
year of settlement were join-
ed the next year by a much
larger group from Iceland.
Late in March of 1875, the
volcano Askja had erupted
suddenly, plunging all of
eastern Iceland into darkness
and covering vast areas with
ashes. Forced to leave their
homes, many of the farmers
and farm laborers from those
regions decided to accept the
offers of the Canadian Gov-
ernment and accompany Sig-
tryggur Jónasson to “New
Iceland.” The party of 1,100
that came in 1876 followed in
the footsteps of the first one,
across the Great Lakes to
Minnesota and up the Red
River to Gimli.
Now the settlers began to
spread out within their “re-
servation,” taking up home-
steads to the south and west
of Gimli and as far north as
what was known as the Ice-
landic River. They built log
cabins and sowed some crops
and cut roads through the
heavy forests. By fall of 1876
they had a fairly good harvest,
especially of potatoes, and
they cut some hay, so that
they were able to buy a few
cows in Winnipeg and the
milk shortage was somewhat
alleviated.
But when winter came an
epidemic of smallpox broke
out in the colony. Some say
that the disease was brought
in by an immigrant who
bought a suit of clothes from
a small-pox victim in Quebec;
others claim the Indians car-
ried it to them. Unfortunately,
the nature of the illness was
not discovered until it had
spread to nearly every home.
Then the Canadian Govern-
ment placed the whole region
under quarantine. More than
100 persons lost their lives
in the epidemic.
During the very first year,
the colonists in “New Ice-
land,” despite their hard-
ships, began to justify the
faith Lord Dufferin had in
them. They had always been
accustomed to law and order
in their homeland. Finding
themselves here outside the
jurisdiction of the Province
of Manitoba, in the District o;!
Keewatin, where there were
no local legal authorities, at
the instigation of Sigtryggur
Jónasson, they established a
democratic form of govern-
ment with a local council com-
posed of representatives from
each of the four districts into
which the colony was divided
and an elected head or reeve.
This council met in alternate
years in the two centers
Gimli and Lundi, now River-
ton. The colonists drew up
Laws and Regulations, pro-
1 fréttatilkynningu, sem
utanríkisráðuneyti Bandaríkj-
anna sendi frá sér í október
var meðal annars sagt, að
Leifur Eiríksson hafi verið
fæddur í Noregi og hann hefði
farið til Grænlands sem sendi-
maður Noregskonungs.
í tilefni af þessari tilkynn-
ingu tók prófessor Þórhallur
Vilmundarson saman rök-
studdar upplýsingar um fæð-
ingarland og uppruna Leifs
heppna svo og um leið þá, er
hann sigldi til Vínlands og að-
draganda þeirrar ferðar.
Þessum upplýsingum kom
sendiráðið í Washington á
framfæri við utanríkisráðu-
neyti Bandaríkjanna. Upplýs-
ingar prófessorsins fara hér á
eftir:
1) Eiríkur rauði, faðir Leifs
Eiríkssonar, fluttist ungur frá
Noregi til Islands með föður
sínum, að líkindum eftir að
stofnað hafði verið sjálfstætt
ríki (þjóðveldi) á íslandi um
930. Eiríkur reisti bú á þrem-
ur stöðum á landinu og gekk
að eiga íslenzka konu, Þjóð-
hildi Jörundardóttur. Átti
hann við henni son, Leif Ei-
ríksson, sem eflaust er fædd-
ur á íslandi, ekki ólíklega á
Eiríksstöðum í Haukadal. sbr.
frásögn Grænlendinga sögu,
1. kap.: „Eiríkur fékk þá Þjóð-
hildar . . . Réðst Eiríkur þá
norðan og bjó á Eiríksstöð-
um hjá Vatnshorni. Sonur
Eiríks og Þjóðhildar hét Leif-
ur“. Engin heimild er iil fyrir
því, að Leifur hafi fæðzl í
Noregi, enda gagnstætt öllum
líkum. Tímans vegna eru ekki
heldur líkur til þess, að Leif-
ur hafi fæðzt á Grænlandi,
þar sem faðir hans fór ekki
að kanna landið fyrr en 982—
83 og fluttist þangað alfari
985—86, en Leifur hefur að
sjálfsögðu verið fullorðinn, er
hann stýrði skipi sínu til Vín-
lands, sennilega litlu eftir
985—86 og a. m. k. ekki síðar
en árið 1000. Samkvæmt sögu-
legum heimildum verður því
viding for the building of
roads, care of the needy,
public health, arbitration of
disputes and other local
matters. Sigtryggur Jónasson
served as head or reeve as
long as these laws were in
force, being reelected every
year to that post. This demo-
cratic government, unique in
the history of the Dominion
of Canada, existed for twelve
years, until 1887, when the
boundaries of the Province oJ'
Manitoba were extendec
northward to include “New
Iceland.”
From the very beginning,
the colonists also showed their
determination to keep up their
cultural and intellectual pur-
suits. They had brought with
Framhald á bls. 7.
að telja Leif réttnefndan „son
: slands“, svo sem letrað er á
fótstall líkneskis þess af Leifi
Eiríkssyni, sem Bandaríkja-
Ding sendi íslendingum að
gjöf á þúsund ára afmæli al-
Dingis Islendinga árið 1930.
2) Árið 985 eða 986, sama
sumarið sem landnám íslend-
inga á Grænlandi hófst, sigldi
íslenzkur maður, Bjarni Her-
jólfsson, frá Eyrum á suður-
strönd íslands áleiðis til
Grænlands, en hrakti að
ströndum áður ókunnra landa
vestan Grænlands og leit
fyrstur Evrópumanna augum
örjú lönd, sem munu hafa
verið Nýfundnaland, Labra-
dor og Baffinsland. Græn-
lendinga saga, sem Jón heit-
inn Jóhannesson prófessor
sýndi fram á með gildum
rökum, að er elzta og um
margt áreiðanlegasta heimild-
in um ferðir þessar (rituð
1200), skýrir frá þessum tíð-
indum og bætir því við, að
Leifur Eiríksson hafi keypt
skip Bjarna Herjólfssonar og
siglt frá Grænlandi til hinna
nýju landa, er hann nefndi
Vínland, Markland og Hellú-
land. Steig Leifur á land í
öllum þremur löndum, fyrst-
ur Evrópumanna, svo að vitað
sé, sennilega ekki löngu eftir
985—86. Frásögn yngri heim-
ildar, Eiríks sögu rauða (frá
síðara hluta 13. aldar), sem
getur ekki ferðar Bjarna
Herjólfssonar, en segir, að
Leifur Eiríksson hafi fundið
Vínland, er hann var á leið
frá Noregi til Grænlands árið
1000, sendur af Ólafi Noregs-
konungi Tryggvasyni til þess
að kristna Grænlendinga, er
hins vegar mjög tortryggileg,
svo sem Jón Jóhannesson pró-
fessor hefur vakið athygli á,
þar sem þess er ekki getið í
elztu heimildum um Ólaf
konung Tryggvason, að hann
hafi kristnað Grænlendinga,
þótt aðrar þjóðir, sem hann
kristnaði, séu þar kirfijega
taldar, en aftur á móti bein-
línis tekið fram í hinni fornu
Noregssögu, Historia Nor-
wegiæ, að íslendingar hafi
styrkt Grænland með hinni
kaþólsku trú. Eru því allar
líkur lil, að sú frásögn Eiríks
sögu rauða, að Leifur Eiríks-
son hafi verið sendur af Ólafi
konungi Tryggvasyni frá
Noregi til Grænlands og fund-
ið í þeirri ferð Vínland, eigi
ekki við rök að styðjast, enda
mun reyndar mega rekja þá
frásögn tiL Gunnlaugs munks
Leifssonar, eins og Sigurður
Nordal prófessor hefur bent
á, en Gunnlaugur munkur er
einmitt kunnur að því í öðr-
um tilvikum að spinna upp
frásagnir til vegsemdar
styrktarmönnum kirkju og
kristni.
(Fréttatilkynning frá
utanríkisráðuneytinu).
Tíminn 20. okt.