Lögberg-Heimskringla - 22.07.1994, Blaðsíða 10

10 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 22. júlí 1994

The lcelanders in Manitoba:
The Myth of Beginnings
Following are
excerpts from a new
book to be published
in December,
The New lcelanders,
by David Arnason
and Vince Arnason,
which will be avail-
able from Turnstone
Press, Winnipeg.
The Icelandic community
in North America has a
peculiarly distinctive
shape. Although it has
been a hundred and thir-
teen years since the establishment of
the fírst major settlement of Icelanders
in North America, the community sur-
vives as a recognizable group. It has
national and intemational organiza-
tions, a newspaper, Lögberg-
Heimskringla, a magazine, The
Icelandic Canadian and a cohesive-
ness that allows members to feel
themselves part of a group. This con-
tinues to be the case even among third
and fourth generation Icelandic
Ccmadians and Americans who do not
speak the language and who have
never been to Iceland.
Most ethnic groups struggle pro-
foundly with the problem of maintain-
ing identity, especially in the United
States, where the melting pot program
actively discourages ethnic alle-
giances. Even in Canada, the third
generation of most ethnic groups has
lost any sense of original identity.
There are some very special reasons
for the amazing durability of the
North American Icelandic community
and a festival called íslendin-
gadagurinn plays an important role in
sustaining and nourishing the elusive
goal of group identity.
The first permanent settlement of
Icelanders in North America was
established in Gimli, Manitoba,
October 21,1875. at 4:30 pm. On that
day, the first day of winter according
to the Icelandic calendar, 285 persons
landed at Willow Point just south of
the present site of Gimli, and by the
evening of their arrival, the number
had swelled to 286. Jón Jóhannsson,
or Jón á Bölstað, the first child had
been bom in the new world, and the
land had thus been claimed.
The Icelandic settlement in
Manitoba was unique in a number of
ways, and the experience of the set-
tlers was quite radically different from
that of other ethnic groups that immi-
grated to the Canadian prairies. It
was, to begin with, an apocalyptic
event. A series of volcanic eruptions
in Iceland between 1873 and 1875
had left nearly five thousand
Icelanders homeless. There was nei-
ther the room nor the economic base
in Iceland during a period of reces-
sion to absorb the displaced, and this,
combined with an invitation from the
then Governor-General, Lord
Dufferin, led to a move to migrate to
Canada. It is significant that the emi-
grants did not move primarily because
of economic disadvantage, though
certainly economic conditions were
not good. Nor did they move in reac-
tion to political or religious condi-
tions at home. The group that left was
heterogeneous. The poor and the
wealthy alike, professionals, crafts-
men, fishermen and farmers, all made
the move together. The Icelándic set-
tlement was a representative slice of
Icelandic society, not a single level,
and in this way it was different from
any other large group of settlers to
come to Canada. The historian Louis
B. Hartz points out that fragment-cul-
tures leave their enemies behind when
they move to new places. Instead of
confronting opposing forces, they
undergo a rich intemal development.
The Icelanders brought with them all
the arguments from home, and they
continued them here.
The Icelandic settlers chose to
move to the shores of Lake Winnipeg
for a number of reasons. Many of
them were fishermen, and the lake
was teeming with fish. The rich
Portage plain which was an alterna-
tive possibility was suffering a
grasshopper infestation when the ini-
tial exploration party arrived and so
did not seem inviting. The shores of
Lake Winnipeg were heavily wooded,
Cont’d on page 11

Painting by
Michael Olito

orgeir’s Buil is a painting based on
an old Icelandic folk tale. The story
goes that in the early eighteen hun-
his bull and was in the process of
skinning it when his wife called him in for supper.
When he retumed, the bull had miraculously
come to life and was mnning away across a field,
dragging his skin behind him. The bull vowed to
In eighteen-seventy-five, Þorgeir’s family was
among the settlers who came to New Iceland in
Manitoba. They settled in the area around
Arborg. Þorgeir’s buli, of course, came with them,
and now resides in Manitoba. Sometimes he can be seen Ín the distance, running across a field. Most often
he comes as a barking dog at night.
old European bones and entering the new world. He has forsaken the mountains of Iceland for the plains of
Manitoba. The ghost is powerful, and the violent colours are in keeping with the intent of the painting.