The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1946, Blaðsíða 53

51
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
ely endurable. The first two winters were
hard, but the winter of 1877—'78 was
exceptionally good.
I caught a goodly supply of fish every
winter, after the first, when I did not
catch many. Sometimes I fished directly
off-shore; sometimes at the mouth of
the Red River, and occasionally up
north, at Big Island. I had to be my
own beast of burden to haul the catch,
and this was arduous on such distances.
Towards the end of July, 1877, the cows
arrived, 250 of them. They were brought
from Minnesota, no trifling distance.
We were required to meet the herd and
to assist driving it through the woods.
We had been without milk for two years
and I was not loathe to help. Our journey
took three days, for the road was bad.
By the time we got through to Willow
Point, we were considerably fatigued.
The cows were allotted at Willow Point.
The men were separated into groups ac-
cording to their number of children, or
according to the difficulty of their cir-
cumstances, but mostly on the former
basis. Then each in turn was allowed
to select one cow. I was in the fourth or
fifth group and when it came to our
turn much more than half the herd was
gone. At this point I did not like the
look of things. All the cows which I
had fancied and had a drop of milk in
them, were gone. I was certainly feeling
badly about it when I spied a broken-
tailed five or seven year old, of a good
average size. She was red on the flanks;
had rather fine horns, and a white star
on her forehead. The flaw was that she
was virtually dry and gave a mere cup-
ful on arrival at home. However, her yield
increased and went up to three pints,
and the good creature became one of
my staunchest household pillars. She
was beautiful in appearance, docile,
and sagacious. We called her Bubot,
(freely, Bountiful).
Late in the following month of Aug-
ust, Jon of Laufas loaned to me the
price of a cow which I purchased from
Skapti. She cost thirty dollars, but
proved sterile, so we slaughtered her
and sold half the carcass to Magnus
and Rosa.
Haymaking was difficult. Only small
natural openings here and there in the
forest were fit for cutting, and there
the grass was full of sticks and other
rubbish, and the ground was wet. The
hay had to be carried on forks, or on
barrows, carried by two persons. It was
stacked in hummocks, on the spot, and
then brought in during the winter. It
was not possible in my case to use horses
or oxen, even if I had possessed them,
which I did not, but in some few places
elsewhere the hayland was more acc
essible.
I did not bring my Bible or my Pass-
ion Hymns from home, and the first
winter I was able to buy only Dr. Peturs’
three books, which Sigfus bound, and
the Old hymn book, and three lays. In
addition, I subscribed to Framfari (Pro-
gress). This was all our provender for
mind and spirit, but we were happier
then than later, when we had acquired
more.
On the twenty-first of August my
Valdis went to Winnipeg for work, but
her stay was short and an the twenty-
eighth of September Arni Sveinson and
I left on our trip to bring her home.
The journey to the city took us a day
and a night, the best time in which I
ever made it. On the thirtieth, which
was Sunday, we started for home. We
stayed overnight at a point on the
river a little below Monkman's place.
The three of us slept in the boat
and had a cowhide for cover. The
weather had turned colder, but the wind
did not blow through Arm’s hide. On
the following days we reached home.
During this period we had two cows,
but their yield was small.
Life was different now, although we
did not possess plenty. Indeed, we lack-
ed many things. Our attempts at raising
crops often failed, because of the host of
destructive creatures in the woods. The
potato crop was an exception. On one
occasion I harvested about 150 (pail-
fuls?) of potatoes. I was not able to sell
any of this crop, but we required a great