Lögberg-Heimskringla - 26.04.1996, Side 7

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 26. apríl 1996 • 7
A part of the congregation in front of Reynivellir Church in Kjós on June 11, 1882.
It is interesting to see how many of the women are wearing the national dress.
Translated from Morgunblaöiö
by Gunnur Isfeld
here are not many
photographs avail-
able from the
1880s which were
difficult years in the history
of the Icelandic nation. In
1883 1,215 people left
Iceland for the New World.
Mr. Frank Ponzi, an art
critic and writer in Iceland,
found photo albums at a
used book store in London,
England in 1987. They con-
tained what could be con-
sidered a windfall in photos
taken in Iceland during
these harsh years.
With the exception of the
Skaftár-Eruption and the Great
Mist Eruption in the latter half
of the 18th century, the years
from 1880-1885 are probably
the worst the Icelandic people
have had to endure. The hard-
ship culminated in the deadly
cold winter of 1881 with the
next five winters continuing
exceptionally cold. So extreme
was this cold that the ground
remained frozen through the
summers making very little grass
available for haying and the
grass which grew was so fine
that it could not be bound into
bales suitable for transportation
on pack saddle. It is inconceiv-
able to us who live today how
famine and extensive loss of
livestock could be avoided. The
reference to Iceland being locat-
ed outside the limits of the
inhabitable world has never
been more true than at that
time.
The history books taught in
Icelandic schools have amazing-
ly little to say about these
extremely difficult years; the
emphasis being mainly on poli-
tics and the struggle for inde-
pendence. There is some men-
tion made, however, of a num-
ber of people leaving the coun-
try and moving to the Western
Hemisphere, mainly from
Northern Iceland. Those who
left were for the most part land-
less people — with farmland
over-settled and opportunities
for those without any livestock
very limited. Perhaps those who
gathered their belongings and
left the familiar for the
unknown in the West, were the
courageous ones; people who
simply saw no future, no oppor-
tunity for farming in this kind of
climate.
A Picture Is Worth A
Thousand Words.
We are indebted to English
travellers for the information
they have left us in pho-
tographs from the 18th and
19th century. Travelling along
with their entourage were at
times excellent artists and their
sketches have frequently been
drawn upon at the Morg-
unblaðið and elsewhere.
Photography did not make
inroads in Iceland until the
middle of the last century and
in fact the first photos from
Reykjavík, taken by Alfred Des
Cloizeaux with the Daguerre-
method, are from 1846.
Most of the 19th century
photographs taken by Ice-
landers are from the 1890s and
thereafter, with the exception
of Sigfús Eymundsson’s, who
began taking pictures in 1866
and deserves praise for his pio-
neering work. However, both
he and other photographers
from that time, photographed
mainly leaders in society and
special occasions rather t'nan
the common people’s struggle
for a living. A book of photos
published by Norðri in 1955
under the title “Old Pictures”
include pictures of leaders such
as Pastor Matthías Joch-
umsson, standing in front of
the church at Oddi, Lefolii - a
merchant from Eyrarbakki,
Hannes Hafstein and Pastor
Árni from Skútustaðir on his
way to Althing. This book con-
tains no information about the
photographers and no dates are
mentioned.
Going back to the hardship
years from 1880 there are few
good photographs to be found.
It can therefore be considered a
windfall when Frank Ponzi, an
art critic and writer in Mosfells-
sveit, found photo albums from
Iceland with pictures taken
during these years at a used
book store in London in 1987.
Frank Ponzi has made some
historically valuable discoveries
before regarding Iceland, but
this discovery is unique and
along with the book should
earn him the Order of the
Falcon.
Yet it would be difficult if
not impossible in many
instances to recognize people
and places in the photographs
if another even more unlikely
discovery had not been made.
Two years later a copy of a
diary was found in a private
collection in Scotland written
during visits to Iceland from
the years 1883-84. The original
diary is lost, but that does not
matter. The same handwriting
is on the diary as on the obser-
vations in the albums. The
entries in the diary sometimes
pointed directly to the pictures
in the albums and this was of
great help to Frank Ponzi. The
results were published before
Christmas last year in his book
“Iceland Before The Tum Of
The Century”.
Englishmen and Scotsmen
were great travellers during the
Victorian Era. They toured
their own empire and also trav-
elled to exotic places i.e.
adventures to foreign lands.
Iceland was among those —
the drawing card undoubtedly
being something which they
valued —namely rivers and
lakes with salmon and trout.
Among Scottish sport fish-
ermen who travelled to Iceland
around 1880 were two gentle-
men, Burnett and Trevelyan.
The picture albums as well as
the diary belonged to them.
Both men were from well-to-
do upperclass families; Bumett
had studied German and
French and travelled in
America and the West-Indies,
but lived mainly in London. In
one picture he resembles an
Icelandic land owner in his
Scottish homespun. His friend
Walter H. Trevelyan went with
him, but Walter died young,
and after that Burnett made
three more trips to Iceland by
himself.
At the beginning of the
1880s the camera had become
transportable and could be
taken along on trips. The pic-
tures were taken on a light sen-
sitive sheet of glass. Around
1880 the dry sheet came on the
market and replaced the wet
sheet which was heavier and
required an immediate devel-
opment. Bumett and Trevelyan
were outfitted with modern
equipment and as the glass
sheets were large, the pictures
are clear. Like other foreign
photograpers and artists
Burnett and Trevelyan aimed
their cameras toward housing
and the lifestyle of the com-
mon people and their struggle
for living. In his book, Frank
Ponzi compares the living stan-
dards in Iceland to those in
England during the Victorian
era:
Burnett’s and Travelyan’s
pictures show in a very clear
way the difference between the
living standards of Englishmen
and Icelanders during this
time. As well as giving a pic-
ture of distinct cultural and
social opposites, they explain
the gigantic economic differ-
ence between the two nations.
That difference becomes
painfully clear when you look
at the activities of the travellers
compared to the Icelanders.
On the one hand are the well-
to-do travellers confident in
the financial security of the
British Empire — at that time
at its peak — having arrived to
indulge in their hobbies, to fish
and trade and entertain them-
selves. On the other hand are
the Icelanders, most often
worn out by many years of
hardship, natural disasters, for-
eign occupation, eaming their
living from fishing and sheep
farming in hope, dependent on
the whim of weather and sea-
son and the little bit there was
to be had from trading with
Danes and Englishmen.
The socio-economic gap
becomes even wider if we look
at the particular years men-
tioned here. The winter of
1881 was one of the hardest
people could remember and
was followed by another cold
winter of 1882 when drift ice
lay at the coasts of North-west-
em Iceland, hindering fishing.
The deadly cold which lay over
the whole country, with stub-
bom northem winds, was soon
felt in most of the físhing sta-
tions, making físhing difficult
and resulting in a very small
catch. In southem Iceland pas-
Minnist
BETEL
ÍERFÐASKRÁMYÐAR
ture land was eroded in large
areas by storms and sandstorms
which also took a toll on hors-
es and sheep and carried a
great deal of soil from farmers’
fields out to the ocean. On top
of the people’s difficulties and
the fear of famine was added a
measle epidemic which began
in May 1882. In Reykjavík
alone 1,150 out of 2,600 people
took ill with 150 deaths. As the
illness spread many thousand
people became ill and the death
toll rose. Deaths occurred not
only among the youngest and
the oldest, but also among
those in the prime of life, weak-
ened by hunger and lack of
nutrition. Similar to the years
of the “Big hunger” in the late
1850s when the potato crop
failed and people left the coun-
try in large groups, taking a
chance on a better life abroad.
Although this was not the first
time in Iceland’s history when
tragedy had hit and made life
difficult the exodus which fol-
lowed the year of 1882 and the
“hopelessness years” which fol-
lowed was greater and more
long lasting than had been
experienced before. Large scale
emigration began in 1883 when
about 1,215 people out of a
population of 69,722 moved to
Canada and the USA.”
Continued next week
MESSUBOÐ
Fyrsta Lúterska
Kirkja
Pastor Ingthor I. Isfeld
1030 a.m. The Service
First Lutheran Church
580 Victor St., Winnipeg
R3G 1R2 Ph. 772-7444