The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1955, Blaðsíða 36

34
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Winter 1955
BOOK REVIEWS
THE SASKATCHEWAN
ICELANDERS,
A Strand of the Canadian Fabric
by Walter (Valdimar) Jacobson Lindal
The Columbia Press Ltd., pp. 365, $4.00
Walter (Valdimar) Jacobson Lindal
was born in Iceland in 1887 and was a
tiny infant when his parents emigrated
to western Canada. As a young man
he earned title to a homestead near
Leslie, Saskatchewan, by cultivating
the land with plough and oxen. By
arduous labours he earned the money
to attend college, graduating from
Wesley College in 1911 with the degree
of Bachelor of Arts, and from the Uni-
versity of Saskatchewan in 1915 with
the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He
left his law practice in Saskatchewan
to enlist in the Canadian army over-
seas, serving with distinction in
France and Belgium. He was invalided
home, and following his recovery in
health, he practised law in Winnipeg
and for five years lectured in the Mani-
toba Law School. In January, 194?,
he was appointed Judge in the County
and Surrogate Courts for one of the
Judicial Districts of Manitoba.
W. J. Lindal’s “The Saskatchewan
Icelanders, a Strand of the Canadian
Fabric” is a fascinating and extremely
detailed study of the fine contribution
of one of the ethnic groups to the
growth and development of a great
Canadian Province. He shows that the
Icelandic strand which has been woven
into the Canadian fabric has helped
to give colour and strength to the
whole structure.
Judge Lindal had established him-
self as a man of letters with the
publication of two previous books;
“Two Ways of Life: Freedom or
Tyranny?”, The Ryerson Press, Tor-
onto, 1940; and “Canadian Citizen-
ship and Our Wider Loyalties”, publ-
ished by Canada Press Club and print-
ed by Canadian Publishers Ltd., Win
nipeg, 1946. The present volume “The
Saskatchewan Icelanders”, however,
places him in the forefront of con-
temporary Canadian authors.
Only a scholar with Judge Lindal’s
background and command of both the
English and Icelandic languages, to
gether with his knowledge of the Sask-
atchewan locale and of many of the
settlers and their descendants, could
have attempted such a work and
brought it to such a successful con-
clusion. “The Saskatchewan Icelanders”
will prove of inestimable value to
future historians, since much of the
information contained within its
covers has been obtained at first hand
as a result of painstaking work and
has been chronicled with great care.
The migration of Icelanders to the
unknown west in the last quarter of
the nineteenth century was the result
of the reaction of the adventurous
viking spirit to the oppression of for-
eign monopolies and controls in their
native land, as well as to the terrible
hardships resulting from volcanic
action and unusually severe weather,
producing widespread poverty and
want. Those Icelanders who remained
to fight and overcome these trials pos-
sessed great courage, but those who
migrated possessed in addition that
venturesome spirit which enabled them
to face “those evils which they knew
not of”.
The aims of these migrants were to