Lögberg-Heimskringla - 06.11.1992, Blaðsíða 3

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 6. nóvember 1992 • 3
Hard times in Kinmount
Cont’d. from page 2
sequently, Jónasson was the interpreter
and go between in dealings with the
natives. High on the list of priorities was
a school for the new arrivals where they
could master English. After several
delays a school was set up, during the
winter of 1875, with Sigtryggur Jónasson
as teacher. The school continued to
operate as long as Jónasson was avail-
able to teach.
The Icelanders depended upon the
'railway as their source of income.
Normally work on the line was sus-
pended for the winter months, but the
Icelanders were kept working through
the winter of 1874-5. Then in March,
disaster struck. The Victoria Railway
Company ran out of funds and was
forced to suspend operations. The
Icelanders were thrown out of work.
They were suddenly destitute and des-
perate. After anxiouslý waiting for the
railway construction to begin again, the
colony began to dissolve. Many who
could afford to, moved away in search
of work. Others gallantly took up land
and began to clear farms. They hired
themselves out to local farmers and tried
to make ends meet until work on the
railway began again. William Hartle,
Crown Lands Agent, helped out as best
he could, employing the following
Icelanders as road workers in the sum-
mer of 1875: Arni Thorlakeson (Árni
Þorláksson), Jason Halderson (Jason
Þórðarson), Jon Johnasson (Jón Jónas-
son), Jonathon Halderson (Jónatan
Halldórsson), Ingridi Indridian (Indriði
Indriðason), Gisli Gislison (Gísli Gísla-
son), Pall Bjamson (Páll Bjamason),
Bjom Jasuas (Bjöm Jósúason)
By May 1875, only about thirty five
families — one hundred fifty people —
remained at Kinmount. By June a fur-
ther twelve families had abandoned the
area and moved away. By the end of
July, the remainder had given up hope
for work on the railway and drastic
action was deemed necessary. Employ-
ment around Kinmount was scarce.
Pioneering was extremely difficult for
those Icelanders unused to the peculiari-
ties of the area. Many of the Icelanders
had been herdsmen and fisherman back
home, a far cry from the shanty/-
chopping type of farm at Kinmount. The
slow dissolution of the colony was a
major crisis to the leaders who were
determined to have the settlers stick
together.
In the hour of crisis, several persons
from different backgrounds rallied to the
Icelanders aid. John Taylor, in the ser-
vice of the British-Canadian Bible soci-
ety in 1875, was a missionaiy among the
settlements and lumber camps of
Haliburton. His niece, Caroiine, on a
visit to the Taylors, happened to pass
through ICinmount on her way north.
There she saw several Icelanders and
became sympathetic to their plight. She
reported her brief encounter to her
uncle, who travelled to Kinmount,
became acquainted with the dissatisfied
immigrants and agreed to help their
cause. In the summer of 1875,
Northwest Fever was running unabated
through the area, and rumours of the
rich and empty lands in Manitoba
reached the ears of the Icelandic com-
munity. John Taylor went to Ottawa and
For something fun, something different, something
entertaining..'.come out to the Crystal Casino. You can
play a variety of exciting games, including Blackjack,
Roulette, Baccarat, Pai Gow Poker, Super Pan 9
and Slot Machines.
Valet parking available evenings ($4.00).
Dress code: Semiformal - jacket and tie or equivalcnt dress.
Proceeds to HeaJth Care Projects in Manitoba.
Crystal Casino is a division of the Manitoba Lotteries Foundation.
ffisfii,
II
Now That’s Entertainment
7tb Jloor, Ilotel Fort Garry, 222 Broadway,
Winnlpeg, Manitoba, Canatla (204) 957-2600
Open 12 noon to 2 atn Monday to Saturday; 4 pnt to 2 ant Sundays.
somehow secured govemment fúnds for
an advance scoúting expedition to the
Red River Valley in Manitoba. A May 30,
1875, meeting in Kinmount elected John
Taylor as leader of the expedition and
Sigtryggur Jónasson, Einar Jónasson,
Skapti Arason, and Kristján Jónsson as
the other members. They left Kinmount
on July 2,1875, and travelled via
Wisconsin to the new province of
Manitoba. They were veiy impressed by
the territoiy, the economic potential, the
terrain along Lake Winnipeg (which
reminded them more of Iceland than the
dense forests of Kinmount), and the fact
that there was unlimited space to live in
a body.
The advance party agreed to recom-
mend the new site and return to
Kinmount. The settlers at Kinmount
were notified in August to prepare for
the move. Only one thing stood in their
way: money. John Taylor made an
appeal to the govemment in Ottawa for
a grant, but was initially refused.
Govemor General Lord Dufferin then
intervened and the grant was secured.
The entire Kinmount group packed up
and trekked to Manitoba. Other small
groups and individuals who had left
Kinmount earlier were contacted by
Sigtryggur Jónasson and invited to the
new site. They all agreed to move to the
new colony. Icelanders who had settled
previously in Wisconsin also joined the
Kinmount immigrants. Word was sent
back to Iceland and eventually more
Icelanders immigrated to Manitoba. The
colonists settled on the shores of Lake
Winnipeg around what was to become
the town of Gimli and their descendants
live there to this very day.
The Icelandic settlement at Kin-
mount was a well meaning idea that
failed. It might have succeeded had not
work on the Victoria Railway halted for
a year. The new immigrants were suffer-
ing culture shock and could not accli-
matize themselves to hacking a farm out
of the Snowdon bush. The lots they
abandoned were later occupied by other
settlers and successfully farmed. The
Icelanders also wanted to remain
together in a tight body, and there was
just not enough available land at
Kinmount to satisfy this desire. Most
were destitute and desperately poor
when they left Kinmount, and some-
what disillusioned with local back-
township economics. Had they stayed,
in a few short years they would have
seen the local economy boom as the
railway brought new economic vitality.
Maybe the Kinmount of today would
have been graced with such surnames
as Jónasson, Gíslason, Thorlaksson,
and Bjamson. The Icelanders must have
felt no grudge against their former
friends in Kinmount for they continued
to correspond with the locals after their
move. One such letter in January 1876,
informed their Kinmount friends that
the new colony had been established.
All they left behind were memories, leg-
ends, and about thirty unmarked graves
of those Icelanders who made
Kinmount th’eir final stop.
New facts about cancer
Relatives of women with breast
cancer have a greater risk of
prostate cancer, cancer of the
ovaries, and cancer of the endometri-
um than individuals who do not have
relatives with breast cancer. These are
the conclusions of an Icelandic investi-
gation on familiality of cancer which
appeared in the British Medical
Journal recently. The authors of the
article are Professor Hrafn Tuliníus,
director of the Icelandic Cancer
Registry, Dr. Valgarður Egilsson,
Guðríður H. Ólafsdóttir, genealogist
and Helgi Sigvaldason, statistician.
The joumal has drawn attention to this
article in their press release.
The Cancer Registry of the Cancer
Society of lceland has collected infor-
mation on cancer patients since 1954
and the published results stem from
analysis of this data, but during the
past 20 years the group has done
extensive investigations on familiality
of cancer, especially breast cancer.
Last spring, Mr. Tuliniíus and others
published in Journal of Medical
Genetics, their conclusions conceming
women who have a sister with breast
cancer and have more than twice the
risk of breast cancer than other
women. Those conclusions point to
that common environmental factors
have more influence on the risk of
breast cancer than genetic factors. The
publication today in the British
Medical Joumal supports that genetics
may play a more important role in the
increased familiar risk.
These conclusions are drawn from
pedigrees of 947 women diagnosed
with breast cancer and Dr. Tuliníus
said that investigations on cancers
other than breast cancer are underway.
The main purpose, however, is to try
to resolve why some people seem to be
in greater danger of cancer than oth-
ers. Better understanding of the inter-
play of causal factors could lead to
better methods of prevention.
He said that the most important
point of these new conclusions is the
link between prostate cancer and
breast cancer, prostate cancer being
the most common type of cancer in
the male in Iceland.
He also said that in spite of that the
conclusions show approximately dou-
ble risk for cancer in the same organ as
close relatives compared with those
who do not have relatives with cancer
in that organ is only a moderate
increase in risk. For comparison one
can point to the fact that cigarette
smoking may have a twenty-fold
increase in risk of lung cancer.
Morgunblaðið, OcL 10,1992
Dr. Hrafn Tuliníus was born and
raised in Reykjavík and graduated
from medical college there. He fur-
thered his studies and began his
research in Freiburg, Germany,
Houston, Texas at the Anderson
Institute and in Albany, New York. Dr.
Tuliníus was for many years with the
World Health Organization, stationed
in Lyon, France, and travelled widely
during that time lecturing and establish-
ing cancer research programs. Dr.
Tuliníus has been living in Iceland for
someyears now, but still travels and lec-
tures throughout the world.
Birgjir