Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.05.2016, Síða 11

Lögberg-Heimskringla • 15. maí 2016 • 11
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good weather, although he was
in his 80s, he would leave his
retirement home and walk a mile
uphill to my house with a bottle
of expensive gin. He’d arrive
looking as neat and tidy as the
naval officer he once was. He’d
have a drink of gin and coffee
and a visit and then I’d drive
him back to his retirement home
where we’d have lunch. He was
so modest that I knew Ben for
a long time before I discovered
that he’d been awarded a medal,
the OBE (Order of the British
Empire), for his work during
World War II. It also took quite
a while before I discovered
that he was rich. He is the only
person I’ve ever known who
owned an original Van Gogh.
Horace Greeley’s advice – travel
west, young man – had proved
prophetic. Ben’s parent’s trip
west had given their children
exceptional lives. Opportunity
existed and they made the most
of it.
I also mention the Sivertz
family because their story is
so typical in many ways. They
came to Canada because there
was a lack of opportunity in
Iceland in the 1880s. They
didn’t know English. They first
settled in Winnipeg. They came
to Victoria and joined a small
community of Icelanders who
had arrived before them. Ben
says about his father, Christian,
that he was proud of being
Icelandic, but also, of being a
British citizen.
The Victoria that the
Icelanders came to was very
British. It was a place of coal
barons who could afford to build
places like Craigdarroch Castle.
It was a city with aboriginal
people who had a highly
developed culture evident in
the totem poles and art work
and in their buildings. It was
a city of streetcars and four-
story stone and brick buildings.
There were newspapers and
aboriginal canoe races on the
Gorge. There was high tea,
formal dress, outdoor picnics,
and cricket.
When we gather as we are
doing this weekend, we remind
ourselves of our heritage with
the nostalgia of vínartera, of
kleinur, of brennivín, of clothes
from the time of immigration.
But there is something
here, among us, right now, that
is invisible, that in the past and
present we have carried as we
have traveled west. It was an
essential part of our luggage.
That is the desire for education.
The immigrants carried that
from Iceland to New Iceland,
and from New Iceland west.
While literacy was
widespread in Iceland, the
opportunity for an education
was not available to many.
According to Viður Hreinsson
in Wakeful Nights, his mar-
velous biography of Stephan
G. Stephansson, when Stephan
was a boy he made every
possible effort to learn and
longed to go to school, but
that was impossible for the son
of a poor lodger. The extent
of his yearning for formal
schooling became evident
on a Thursday in the fall of
1865. Stephan was outside
during a storm, when he saw
three people ride by the farm,
heading towards the mountain
pass. His friend Indriði was
travelling to Reykjavík to go
to school. On seeing his friend
leaving for school and knowing
he could not go, Stephan was
overwhelmed with grief. He
ran out among the tussocks and
threw himself on the ground,
sobbing in the rain.
It was not just Stephan who
longed for the opportunity to
get an education.
Think about the situation
of those first settlers in
New Iceland. They landed
on a sandbar as winter was
beginning. They had ratty
second-hand Hudson Bay tents
for shelter. Their first task was
to build as many log cabins as
there were stoves.
Yet, nine days after their
landing at Willow Point, John
Taylor, their leader, sent a letter
to the Lieutenant Governor
of Manitoba and the North-
West Territories saying “The
Icelanders in the colony are
desirous of having a school
for their children as soon as
they can put up a schoolhouse.
They have a teacher with them
and wish to be connected to the
regular educational system of
Canada.”
Nine days after landing.
Wanting a schoolhouse. That,
to me, is amazing. They had
traveled all this distance with
great difficulty, had undergone
severe hardships, and now were
in the midst of the wilderness
in a completely foreign land
and what they wanted was a
schoolhouse.
The settlers could only build
as many cabins as there were
stoves. The result was crowded,
inadequate shelter. Some of the
food the Icelanders were sold in
Winnipeg was of poor quality.
Once the lake froze over, to
keep from starving, they had
to learn how to fish under the
ice. Yet, before Christmas,
Caroline Taylor, the niece of
John Taylor, opened a school in
English. Thirty people enrolled.
Imagine the situation. Winter,
snowdrifts, blizzards, no roads,
isolation, inadequate food,
illness because they didn’t have
the cows they were promised.
(In Iceland, milk had been a
major part of their diet.) Yet,
they had a school. And people
struggled through the snow and
cold to get there.
The next year, when the
smallpox started, the school
was disbanded. Temporarily
disbanded. One hundred and
two people died from the
smallpox. The settlement
was devastated. Yet, once the
smallpox was over, Jane Taylor,
the daughter of John Taylor,
restarted the school, this time
with sixty-three students.
In the following years, Rev.
Páll Þorlákson held classes.
In 1885, Guðni Thorsteinsson
organized and taught classes.
There was Sigurður G.
Thorarensen and Jóhann P.
Sólmundsson and Björn B.
Ólson. All of them and many
others were determined to
see that children would get an
education.
The desire for their children
to be educated was carried by the
westward traveling Icelanders
all the way to the coast.
Ben Sivertz says, at the
beginning of the book he wrote
about his father, that his father
was a laborer and his mother
did housekeeping. His father,
Christian, finally got a job as a
postman delivering mail. Being
a mailman paid enough that
they had their own house and
they could afford to educate
their six sons. Their sons did
not need to become indentured
servants with no future.
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