The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1955, Page 16

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Winter 1955
HOME IN A NEW LAND
Thrill and Joy of Promise
by G. F. GUDMUNDSSON
Looking for some calves, and mak-
ing my way through brush and under-
growth to the east end of the coulee
pasture, I came, for the first time in
years, upon the site of our homestead
hut, our first habitation in Saskat-
chewan. It did not merit the appel-
lation of a log cabin; it was simply a
dugout in the coulee bank, the ends
and the back bank forming the three
walls, while the front and roof were
made of poles and odd ends of used
boards, shipped as part freight in a
settler’s car from Winnipeg. The roof
was topped with stripped sod.
Now there remained only a slight
depression in the bank, on which na-
ture had laid a grass-thatched cover
over the years. Coming to this selected
place, I stopped and humbly stood in
reverent remembrance. For me this
was holy ground and the trespasser
here should, “put off his shoes.”
Here we had, desperately poor, spent
our first winter and put in our first
Christmas in a strange land, and here
as if by magic, mother had made it a
warm, glowing, candlelit Christmas.
Somehow she found something new
for each one of us six children, and
for me as the first born, there was a
brand-new, man-styled suit—that is
new as mother had made it from left-
over, handed-down garments, yet never
was a young man prouder of his attire.
There was no turkey with trimmings.
Bush rabbits were our main meat ra-
tion that winter. But on each end of
the table were stacks of crisp thin-fried
bread cakes, a national Yuletide food
in the Old Country, artistically design-
ed and cut out, mainly in leaf-like pat-
tern, inside of the circled rim.
And here my father, though an un-
schooled layman, taught the catechism
to seven or eight youngsters that win-
ter, and prepared them for their con-
firmation which would be conducted
by the minister coming out from Win-
nipeg in the spring.
Recently I talked with a lady who
had been one of the girls in that group.
“As humans do,” she said, “I have fait
ered, but since that winter I have
never doubted what your father so
persistently instilled in us: “There
is a moral law controlling the uni-
verse, which people and nations violate
at their peril.”
Father had managed to transport
our books, so we had good reading,
and for many an hour, in this lowl)
hut, we sat at the feet of the masters
of all ages.
The following spring we were hosts
to a large family of settlers, who in
the homesteaders tradition, stayed with
us until some shelter had been put up
on their own holdings. In some strange
way, arrangements were made for their
accommodation in our cramped quar-
ters and for their presence at our table,
goodwill and generous hearts making