Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.02.2015, Qupperneq 14

14 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • February 15 2015
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Nearly eight years before joining five other British colonies
to form the Commonwealth of
Australia, some of the people
in New South Wales noticed
the immigration of Icelanders
from their homeland to
Canada. Joan Young, of the
Central Vancouver Island
Icelandic Club “Mið Eyja,”
recently posted this interesting
Australian perspective on
Iceland, which originally
appeared in The Illustrated
Sydney News on March 11,
1893.
It’s estimated that about
930 Australians today have
Icelandic ancestry. Among
the noteworthy Icelandic
Australians are novelist and
poet Alan Gould and soccer
goalkeeper Matthew Trott.
The Icelandic Australian
Association of New South
Wales was founded in 1981
to foster relations between
Icelanders and Australians, and
maintain the culture, traditions
and Icelandic language among
the Icelanders living in
Australia. Iceland established
diplomatic relations with
Australia in 1984 and there
are Honorary Consulates in
Sydney and Melbourne.
Although the following
account contains a few
minor errors, stereotypes,
and exaggerations, it offers
an interesting insight into
Australians’ views of Iceland
in the late 19th century. Of
course, by the time this article
appeared in The Illustrated
Sydney News, the Icelandic
community in North America
was already well established.
It was already 20 years
since a significant group
of Icelanders had settled in
Wisconsin and nearly 17
years since the first settlers
had arrived in New Iceland.
Heimskringla and Lögberg
had both been publishing for
several years, Lutheran and
Unitarian congregations were
flourishing, young Icelanders
were attending college and
entering the professions, and
naturalized citizens were
active in politics on both sides
of the Canada-US border. And
contrary to the impression in
New South Wales, not every
Icelander was longing to
immigrate to North America.
Icelandic romance: the
migration of a nation
The Illustrated Sydney
News (March 11, 1893)
Seventy thousand
Icelanders are yearning for
homes in Canada, and the first
2000 have started on their
way!
These Icelanders have been
settled in their island home for
more than 1000 years, and now
they want to go to Canada.
Poor souls! Why do they want
to go?
The story of Iceland is one
that is remarkable above all
the stories that ever were told.
When the country was first
settled in the ninth century, it
was by men who were ahead
of their time, by men who
had been driven from Ireland,
Norway, and Denmark. These
men were necessarily rich,
because in the “good old days”
a poor man was of no account,
and travelling was impossible.
Only he could travel who could
secure ships and servants,
swords and cattle. There were
no railways or hotels, no
directories or post offices. The
rich, great, scholarly men and
their families found refuge in
Iceland, and settled there and
founded a republic of men like
unto themselves.
And Iceland was a safe
place. It is an island in the
North Atlantic, about 250
miles east of Greenland. It
is about 300 miles long, 200
miles wide, and the habitable
part of it is only about 1/10th of
the whole. It contains the far-
famed volcanic mountain of
Hecla, round which the gods
gathered in early days. It has
mountains where the snow
lies all the year round, and
the dæmons of the storm are
forever contending.
An Icelander, describing
his own land, said it was
“nothing but bogs, rocks, and
precipices; precipices, rocks,
and bogs; ice, snow lava; lava,
snow, ice; rivers and torrents;
torrents and rivers.”
There are spots of wild
beauty in the strange island,
and there are plains where
good grass grows for the
hardy, sure-footed ponies; but
the nature of the land can be
best imagined from the fact
that there are no wild beasts
indigenous to the place except
the fox, and no corn is grown
at all.
A few hundred acres of
land are under cultivation, but
the staple diet of the people is
fish, so that life is not worth
much in Iceland, as we count
life. The richest man in the
country is not worth as much
as £300 a year, and the poor-
rates are cruelly heavy. No
wonder they want to leave
it and go to Canada. They
have no roads, no sewers, no
vehicles, non of the adjuncts of
what we call civilization, yet
they have been a great nation
in their own time, and over
70,000 people live in Iceland
today.
They are called Danish
colonists, but they were
educated republicans when
the Danes were barbarous sea-
robbers. They had a public
school about the middle of
the eleventh century, when the
young people committed the
Eddas and Sagas to memory,
and acquired the literature of
pagan days.
The ancient mariner of
Iceland was a pirate, of course;
all the godly seamen of that age
were, and it was only natural
that the Icelandic sons of
Vikings and sea-kings should
be so too, and they took tribute
from all the men of the sea.
About AD 1000, the new
doctrines of Christianity were
introduced, and that ruined the
piracy trade, which was the
staple industry of the place.
After that there came sorrow,
hard times, bigotry, intolerance,
and shame, for human nature
was the same there then as it
always has been everywhere
else. When failure came they
blamed each other. The little
republic died after a career of
between 300 and 400 years, and
Iceland became an appanage of
the Norwegian throne. Then
the world pirates, even to the
Algerians, fell upon the coasts
of Iceland and destroyed all
that centuries of bold piracy
had accumulated.
... continued on page 15
A 19th-century view of Iceland from Down Under
Icelandic pack horsesAn Icelandic woman in her
everyday dress
An Icelandic woman in her
Sunday dress
An Icelander's headdressAn Icelandic bride