Lögberg-Heimskringla - 30.04.1999, Blaðsíða 5

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 30. apríl 1999 • 5
The Icelanders of Kinmount
The Inlenwlional docked ihe tmmigrafion Shcds al Upper Fort Garrj (Winnipeg) ca 1875
Manitíiba ArehÍvfK'i.
The stemwheeler International which took on the Ontario Icelanders at Fisher’s Landing on the Red Lake River, October
1875. Photo courtesy Nelson Gerrard
Don Gislason
Toronto, ON
On February 6, 1998 the Lögberg-
Heimskringla featured an article about the
“Kinmount Memorial Project, ” to honour a
large group of Icelanders who settled in
Ontario in 1874. Further adventures of
these immigrants will appear in subsequent
issues of the paper. Their passage was on
the S.S. St. Patrick.
What happened to those immigrants
reads like a series of unusual mishaps and
government blundering. They struggled
their way from hard times in Iceland to
sickness, unemployment, and other disas-
ters in Ontario. And then, after a bitterly
cold winter (1875) in Manitoba, they suf-
fered through a terrible smallpox epidemic.
These people were the bulk ofthe 1875
founders of New Iceland on the shores of
Lake Winnipeg. In spite of their personal
trials in Canada, they endured. Their
descendants can also be found scattered
across the United States and worldwide.
Therefore, the Icelandic National
League has decided to erect a memorial
caim in Kinmount to commemorate this ill-
fated attempt to settle in North America, an
event which became the springboard for
Nýja ísland. Dedication of the memorial
will be in the year 2000—one hundred and
twenty-five years after thefact. It will com-
prise one part of the INL’s millennium pro-
gram.
Contributions to this memorial fund
should be sent to: John Gilmore, Treasurer
(ICCT), 31 Wild Cherry Lane, Thornhill,
ON, Canada, L3T3T3. Ph. (905) 889-9937.
Cheques are payable to: The Icelandic
Canadian Club of Toronto and earmarked
as “Kinmount Memorial Project. ”
THE EXPERIMENT AT Kinmount
had failed. Very few families
were left unscathed by tragedy.
Tales of high infant mortality, poverty,
shanty life, ill health, and extreme dis-
comfort in Ontario would enter
family histories, all in the name of
progress on the fringes of the
Precambrian Shield.
Immigration services at the
time were at a crossroads. Not only
had the St. Patrick Icelanders land-
ed in Canada during a depression,
but had also fallen into an inefficient
system badly in need of restructur-
ing. There was always the chance of
oversight or mismanagement of
immigrant labour. Provincial agen-
cies in Europe were to close down,
with responsibilities handed over to
federal offices. An order-in-council
was passed to this end. The
Commissioner of Immigration for
Ontario wrote to John Crawford,
Lieutenant Governor of Ontario
that:
“...The undersigned having had the
benejit, in the years 1873-1874, of
observing the working in Britain of
the immigration services of the
Province [Ontario] as well as of
Canada, was so impressed with the
imperfection of the agencies
employed, the multiplication of offi:
cials, and the complication as well
as the hostility of their efforts, and
the want of a central controlling
authority, undertook to devise some
improvements... ” (Adam Crooks)
Clearly, the Icelandic settlement
at Kinmount didn't have a chance.
From the beginning events worked
against its survival. Had the prepaid
Danish vessel arrived as expected in
July, 1874 things would have taken
a different twist. Again, had the
Allan Lines brought them earlier to
Canada as planned, they would have
been hired out to farmers, taking up
land the following spring. Also, the area
around Kinmount proved marginal for
agriculture. Moreover, there wasn't a
suitable tract of Free Grant land large
enough for a colony. Without ready
employment for all, many of them
became dependent on government
assistance.
Undoubtedly, if the railway compa-
ny had not suspended its operations in
March of 1875, more people would
have put down roots in the surrounding
townships. It may have seemed a good
idea for govemment and business to
bring these immigrants to a Free Grant
area on the edge of the Shield, but it
soon became a disaster for all con-
cemed. And not in the least, they suf-
fered ill health along the way, due to
constant overcrowding and the spread
of disease—languishing in port to leave
Iceland, crammed into steerage across
the Atlantic, waiting in the immigration
sheds in Toronto, and jostling for space
and fresh air in the shanties.
They left Kinmount and other
places disillusioned with back-town-
ship economics. They had immigrated
here expecting to work hard towards a
better future. But for many, the sacri-
fices were too great; it may have
seemed that nothing had been gained by
leaving Iceland. For those that had lost
the most, the immediate future in
Canada may have looked rather bleak.
Even so, if they had remained and not
joined the flood of migrants to the West,
they would have prospered in Ontario.
The lcelanders of Kinmount
will be concluded in the next issue.
WE’LL CHANGE
THE WAY YOU
THINK ABOUT
EUROPE.
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taMng off froin the Twin
Cities and Halifax.

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