Lögberg-Heimskringla - 03.06.2005, Qupperneq 16
16 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Friday 3 June 2005
‘I’m where I want to be’
Danny Thorsteinson thefourth ofsix generations onfamilyfarm
PHOTO : STEINÞÓR GUÐBJARTSSON
Danny Thorsteinson speaks at the Recent INL Convention in
Wynyard, SK.
Joan Eyolfson Cadham
Foam Lake, SK
£ Then I finished
\/\/ school, I wanted
▼ ▼ to farm. Mom
and Dad insisted I go to univer-
sity. It was the best thing I ever
did — I took agriculture. Then
I worked for someone else, nine
to five, looking at the clock. It
reaffirmed what I wanted to do.
You have to appreciate what
you’ve got. We have a great ex-
panse of land, with fresh air, and
it’s not packed with people.”
That’s how Gary Thorsteinson
explains why he is content to
be the fifth generation of his
family on the same land near
Foam Lake — with son Tryg-
gvi, born Aug. 10, 2004, mak-
ing the sixth.
Gary farms with his father,
Danny, who also never wanted
to do anything else. “I would
sit in West Side school [a one-
roomed country school west of
Foam Lake], look out, and watch
the guys doing what they were
doing. That’s where I wanted to
be. When I got to high school,
Bill Gushulak promised that, if
I stayed home, he’d ensure that
I got my Grade 10.”
Danny has been farming for
40 years. “Dad was sick. Either
I took over the farm, or it would
have been disposed of. It was
1964.1 was bom in 1942.1 was
22.” The Thorsteinsons seed
6,000 acres. They are breeding
500 cows. “We don’t have to
look for winter work. We have a
totally rounded operation,” says
Danny.
They’ve come a long way
from the day August 30, 1907,
when Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson
filed for a homestead on NW
32-30-12 W2nd.
Thorstein and his wife,
Anna Ingibjorg, immigrated to
Canada from Iceland with three
children in 1892. Six more were
bom in Canada. They lived
briefly in Churchbridge and
Whitesands before they home-
steaded in the post office district
of Fairlands, later to become the
district of Leslie.
The family squatted on the
west side of the marsh (origi-
nally Foam Lake, now the
Foam Lake Heritage Marsh),
down below the present ranch
site, in 1898. The children
sailed across the lake to school.
Guðbjargar Sigurðardóttir,
widow of Thorsteinn, had filed
on NW 32-30-12 when she
was 70. As improvements she
cited a 14 x 18 log house with
a frame roof worth $700, and
a log stable, 12 x 12. By time
of claim, they had cultivated 37
acres.
Her son, also Thorsteinn,
known as “Stoney,” spent the
growing season on the land
from 1903 to 1905, settling
permanently in 1906, with his
wife and nine children, in a
two-storey house, made of lum-
ber, with a shingle roof, worth
$2,000. He also had a log stable
with a shingle roof, another 14
x 30 stable with a straw roof,
and a granary, the total worth
of his outbuildings being $500.
The Thorsteinsons always had
livestock — Stoney had 80
cattle, 12 horses and 25 sheep.
He had cultivated 80 acres and
had them two-wire fenced. The
land was worth $80.
The generations followed
— from Stoney to Einar Skul-
mundur who married Beatrice-
Aurora Thorlakson of Winni-
peg, to Johann Daniel (Danny),
who married Judith Ann Gray,
to Gary, who married Tara Bolt
and, when he’s old enough to
take his place, young Tryggvi.
Thorsteinn apparently had
a bout of homesickness, left his
wife and children on the farm,
and went back to Iceland. How-
ever, he came back. According
to the Foam Lake history book,
They Came From Many Lands,
he was very happy to get back to
his family and his farm work.
Later generations have had
no pressing urge to go any-
where.
It wasn’t necessarily easy.
Danny’s mother was bom in
Winnipeg. “She was used to all
the amenities. She came to the
farm — no water, outdoor facil-
ities — it must have been hard,”
says Danny.
However, he says, look at it
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this way. “Most people have a
job working for a living. They
look forward to the weekend
so that they can do what they
want. I’m farming. When I go
on a holiday, I look forward to
getting back to work. I’m doing
what I want. Life is too short
to live any other way. The only
time we complain on the farm
is when we are worried that we
can’t continue doing it.”
Danny’s father worked the
land in tandem with John Bjar-
nason. When he left, Frankie
and Ella Reynolds farmed with
him. “Dad never drove a trac-
tor,” said Danny. “John was the
tractor man.” Dad picked stones
with horses, but he did drive the
grain truck while John did the
field work.
“I was 18, seeding my
first field. Decisions had to be
made because of my father’s ill
health. I was working lake bot-
tom, spending an eternity with
small equipment, and fed up.
Dad had dropped me off with
my lunch and a barrel of gas.
I saw my neighbour with three
disks together, and a big trac-
tor. I said to myself, ‘One day,
that’s where I want to be.’”
Danny has gone that far and
further — all from the same part
of prairie that he holds dear. And
Gary? Gary is 32. He plans to
stay on the farm. “I’ve wanted
to farm as long as I remember,”
he says. “My first memory is
riding on the floor of the tractor,
and sleeping there. I’m where I
want to be.”
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