Lögberg-Heimskringla - 26.08.2005, Page 8

8 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Friday 26 August 2005
Donald E. Gislason has been very active
in the lcelandic Canadian Club of Toronto.
He has studied the history of the lcelandic
immigration to Kinmount, Ontario and a
few years ago he published the book The
lcelanders of Kinmount. Steinþór
Guðbjartsson asked him a few questions.
Don was bom in Sas-
katchewan and lived
there and in Vancouver
before moving to Toronto. “It’s
impossible to discuss Kinmount
without including Muskoka,”
he says.
“I had once heard from my
dad, who was a great racon-
teur, that some of his mother’s
relatives had settled in the Mus-
koka District around 1873, be-
fore continuing west. That led
to a Christmas visit in 1966 to
the town of Rosseau and pio-
neer hamlet of Hekkla, north
of Toronto, where my wife
and I visited members of the
pioneer Einarson clan. Their
stories gave me a rural anchor
or background for early On-
tario Icelandic settlement and a
larger sense of belonging in my
adopted province.
“Also, passing references
to the ill-fated settlement at
Kinmount on the fringe of the
Precambrian Shield, northeast
of Toronto, perked my inter-
est. I recalled that another of
my dad’s matemal relatives had
lived there before Gimli was
founded. Genealogy and its
characters were often discussed
in the home. As I had followed
my family sojoum in North
America, as well as in Iceland,
the unravelling of a personal-
ized Ontario pioneer past in
Muskoka and at Kinmount
added to the saga. Then again,
having studied Historical Ge-
ography at university, my per-
sonal findings were couched by
an academic interest as well —
the resource base and economic
changes over time as they im-
pact on family history.”
In 1999 Don researched
and published The lcelanders
of Kinmount as part of the Ice-
landic National League’s Mil-
lennium program. That broughl
him into contact with primary
sources, archival and anecdot-
al.
“Their history in that hard-
scrabble logging area of the
1870s was shared by many oth-
er groups — pioneer challenges
on new frontiers, the vagaries of
climate and fickle economic
times,” he says. “During my
research, I was able to follow
some of the Icelandic families
as they fanned out across the
country, eastward to Nova Sco-
tia, to the US and Manitoba. I
have tried to shed more light on
a lost moment in Kinmount’s
past, trace the events which
led to the founding of Gimli,
and add one more chapter to
the saga of Canadian pioneer
settlement.
“That has led to a growing
body of knowledge and hope-
fully may inspire others to use
my work and methodology as a
springboard for further research
or reference. Helping Ryan
C. Eyford, scholar at Carleton
University during his 2003
M.A. thesis Icelandic Migra-
tion to Canada, 1872-1875 -
New Perspectives on the ‘Myth
ofBeginnings’ is an example of
‘what keeps me going’.”
People wonder why the
Icelanders settled in Kinmount.
Cheap labour
“The plan in 1874 had been
to arrive in Ontario in time for
harvest,” says Don, “so that they
could be hired on by farmers in
order to become familiar with
the land before setting oul on
their own, possibly the follow-
ing spring. As the season was
too advanced in late Septem-
ber for agriculture, alternative
employment had to be struck.
Around this time, the Victoria
Railway Co. was preparing to
lay a forty-mile stretch of track
between Lindsay and Kin-
mount, and the Icelanders fell
to the task.
“Apart from a few single
women placed directly into
domestic service in Toronto
and Lindsay, the bulk of the St.
Patrick Icelanders were sent to
Kinmount as cheap labour, to
work on building a portion of
the railway bed. This consist-
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