Lögberg-Heimskringla - 26.08.2005, Page 8

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- Visit us on the web at http://www.lh-inc.ca

x

Lögberg-Heimskringla

Direct Links

If you want to link to this newspaper/magazine, please use these links:

Link to this newspaper/magazine: Lögberg-Heimskringla
https://timarit.is/publication/160

Link to this issue:

Link to this page:

Link to this article:

Please do not link directly to images or PDFs on Timarit.is as such URLs may change without warning. Please use the URLs provided above for linking to the website.