Lögberg-Heimskringla - 29.05.1992, Síða 2

2 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 29. maí1992
Visiting with the past
by Don Gislason
This past August my wife Leona,
and I took our youngest son Neil
on a camping trip throughout
Québec with a focus on the Gaspé
Peninsula and the area of Percé
Rock. We then dipped into the Acadian
districts of New Brunswick before
returning to Toronto via New
England. Time was also spent in
both Montréal and Québec City.
There were exceptionally few tourists
throughout the province. Clearly, the
language laws have had an effect on
travellers, especially those from
the States, who can’t read French.
There are no signs in English; not
even to notify campers of night
prowlers such as raccoons and
aggressive bears! Campsites tended to
be empty. Neil is fully bilingual so we
had minimal difficulty dealing with
tourist needs. Even the attendants
in McDonald’s in Québec City could
not understand an order given in
English.
While in Québec City we went to
the Customs House where the
majority of immigrants destined for
Canada West or the U.S. prairie states
passed through. It was a moving
experience to ascend the steps from
the harbour area to the great hall. No
doubt, the govemment will one day
designate the place as an important
historic monument, such as Ellis Is-
land, NY. On the other hand, Parks
Canada has begun working on Grosse
Isle in the St. Lawrence River which
housed migrants who arrived sick
and required quarantine. Many an
Irish ‘plague boat’ left its human
cargo on the island.
. A great number of Scandinavians
entered North America through
Québec, just to continue on to places
like Minnesota, Dakota and Wis-
consin. During the latter part of the
nineteenth century it was fairly easy
to enter Canada via the British
steamship Allan Lines with the
express purpose of continuing on to
the States... for the cost of buying a
forwarding ticket after landing in
Québec.
Kristján G. Kristjánsson and
Svanfríður Jónsdóttir were
scheduled to arrive, along with 419
Icelanders, on the Allan Line steamer
S.S. Waldensian in Lévis harbour
(Québec City) at 2:00 p.m., August
1, 1878. After passing through the
Customs House they continued on
to Toronto by train and on August
3rd were reported to have been at
Lachine Junction near Montréal.
The group apparently got to the
immigration sheds in Toronto later in
the day. Those destined for Manitoba
(New Iceland, NWT) were routed
across the Great Lakes either through
Samia or Collingwood, Ontario. The
telegrams which followed the move-
ments of this immigrant group indicate
no other intransit routings for western
Canada.
Eleven years later, my grandfather,
Valdimar Gíslason, made the
same trip from Iceland. He disem-
barked on July 11, 1887, from the
S.S. Norwegian and cleared customs
in that same building before taking
a train via Ottawa across the Shield
to Winnipeg. Kristján and Svanfríður
apparently had to make their way to
Winnipeg by lake steamer whereas
Valdimar arrived in Canada after the
railway was built across northern
Ontario.
Ihave been to the immigration mu-
seum at the foot of the Statue of
Liberty in New York harbour. It
commemorates the arrival of seem-
ingly endless numbers of people. I
hope a similar museum will be estab-
lished in Québec for Canada, even
though many came through there en
route to the States in order to by-pass
the more expensive New York routing
to U.S. destinations. ‘Afi’ Valdimar
was among those immigrants who
had a ticket for Winnipeg, but with
the U.S. in mind. His thinking be-
came abundantly clear when we
were southwest of Pembina sum-
mer before last, looking for the old
Gíslason farmsteads. We believe we
found all four of them including
the place where his sister Kristín
Gísladóttir and husband Þorvarður
Einarsson had settled on in 1883.
Young Reader’s Corner:
Where are the /celanders?
by Frank Sigurdson
The lcelandic Heritage
Heritage refers to language, litera-
ture and traditions. Customs, food,
clothing, and many other things are
also part of heritage. One part of our
heritage, the Icelandic language, is a
help to the understanding of Old Norse
and Germanic writing. Most impor-
tant, one leams through it about the
glories and achievements of Iceland’s
past. Icelandic writing contains over a
thousand years of Icelandic history. The
Sagas tell the stories of the Viking voy-
ages and settlements in America.
Icelandic writing is a source of infor-
mation about the past. That is why they
work so hard to make sure that it will be
here for future generations.
Icelandic has to very little extent
been taught in North American public
schools, and is now only taught at the
Elementary School in Riverton, Mani-
toba. Many Icelanders live in areas
where there is little chance to speak the
language. Very few immigrants arrived
after 1920 so reinforcement of the lan-
guage almost stopped. The result is that
most people of Icelandic origin in
America are unable to speak the lan-
guage.
The fact that so many Icelandic Ca-
nadians are unable to speak Icelandic
does not mean that
they are not seen as
an ethnic group.
There are many
people who are very
active in doing
things that are Ice-
landic. There is al-
ways a lot of news
about Icelandic
clubs, projects, writ-
ing and learning.
This provides a
strong feeling for
the Icelandic herit-
age.
There was a report about the Leifur
Eiríksson Conference held in Wash-
ington, D.C., last year in the Lögberg-
Heimskringla. It stated that the
President of Iceland, Vigdís
The children of lcelandlc descent who attend the lcelandlc
Language and Cultural Camp, held one week every summer
at a campsite near Gimli, learn about their heritage and
are introduced to the lcelandlc language.
Finnbogadóttir, asked the delegates to
tell the children that it does not
matter whether or not they speak
Icelandic, it is the memories of where
they come from that count.
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