Lögberg-Heimskringla - 05.11.2004, Qupperneq 8

8 • Lögberg-Heimskringla » Friday 5 November 2004
F°rthe
record
Descendents of the lcelandic pioneers in
Muskoka, Ontario have a keen respect for
history, as David Jón Fuller found out.
One of them was Edith Smith of Ullswater,
who in her many-volumed scrapbooks,
keeps a record of all things lcelandic.
Meet Edith Smith, unof-
ficial chronicler of
Hekkla.
In her many scrapbooks,
she has preserved photos,
newspaper clippings, maps,
land deeds, family trees — a
wealth of information. It
seems to be more than a
hobby, but then, her love affair
with Iceland has lasted her
whole life.
Edith is of Icelandic and
Norwegian descent. Her father
was John Olsen, and her moth-
er, Desa Einarson, was one of
six daughters of Jakob
Einarson and Jórunn Pálsdóttir,
who were born in Iceland
before emigrating to Canada
and settling in the Muskoka
region of Ontario. They came
from Húnavatnssýsla, Iceland,
and her grandfather Jakob was
among the later wave of set-
tlers to what became known as
Hekkla. He arrived around
1880.
Named after Hekla, the
volcano in Iceland, the settle-
ment’s different spelling arose
through an error in naming the
postal district for the area.
Edith says she always had
a keen interest in her Icelandic
heritage, even as a child. “I will
always remember,” she says,
“that one week out of nearly
every year mother, she had five
sisters and three brothers, they
would get together at one place
or the other, and that week they
would speak nothing but
Icelandic.”
Edith herself never spoke
Icelandic growing up. “My
mother was always sorry she
did not teach us,” she says.
Her interest in collecting
all things Icelandic began, she
adds, “ríght from childhood.
Now I don’t know when I first
started this, but apparently
when I was real little, I used to
say, ‘One day, I will go to
Iceland.’ Had no idea what
Iceland was or where it was.
Just because I always heard
Icelandic, you see.”
As she grew older, she
was keenly interested in her
heritage, both on her mother’s
and her father’s side. “I’ve
collected stuíf ever since I was
little,” she says.
She began putting them
into scrapbooks when she was
18 or 19, and now has four full
volumes chronicling Icelandic
people and stories from the
area, as well as Iceland. (She
has another set for her
Norwegian side, and other
albums covering involvement
in church groups.)
Edith’s husband Harry
was a regular reader of
Outdoor Life magazine in the
1960s, and this was how Edith
found a way to visit the land
of her ancestors.
In one issue of the maga-
zine there was an article on
sport fishing in Iceland. “I
read the story; I read it several
times,” says Edith. “It men-
tioned a man’s name who had
a fish and tackle store on the
main street of Reykjavík. I
didn’t tell anyone that I did
this, but I wrote him and just
said who I was and that my
grandfather was born in
Iceland, gave him his name,
and gave him amma’s name,
and [asked] would he be able
to tell me where I could write
to research to fmd relatives.”
The man, whose name
was Albert Erlingsson, put an
advertisement in
Morgunblaðið on her behalf.
(A copy of this is among the
clippings Edith has pre-
served.)
She received a letter in
Icelandic from relatives there,
which her aunt Bena
(Jakobína) translated and
responded to for her. It wasn’t
long before Edith was on her
way.
Her first trip to Iceland
was in 1969, and she
describes her relatives’ recep-
tion as incredibly warm.
“They toured us everywhere.
They showed us where afi and
amma were born,” she says —
the farm in Húnavatnssýsla. It
is a trip she will never forget.
Edith returned to Iceland
in 1990 on a charter flight
from Winnipeg. She says
she’s glad she was able to
make a second trip, as Iceland
had changed dramatically dur-
ing the intervening years.
Roads, highways, buildings
— all were newer and bigger.
“I would never, ever — had I
not gone the first time — have
dreamed to go the second
time,” she says.
The second time, travel-
ling with others of Icelandic
descent, she adds, there was
some confusion among one of
her fellow travellers. Edith
professed ignorance of certain
people who had grown up in
— and in print the spelling
gives it away — Hecla. The
other traveller was nonplussed.
“She said, ‘I thought you came
from Hecla.’ And then it
clicked, just like that,” says
Edith, with a smile and a snap
of her fingers. “And I said,
‘Yes, I only live about 15 miles
from Hekkla — in Ontario'
So that started the ball rolling.
It was kind of cute.”
That trip, of course, is
well-documented in one of
Edith’s albums.
And it doesn’t look as
though she will be slowing her
efforts any time soon. “It’s
just something I’ve always
liked doing,” she says.
“Always saving stuff.”
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