The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1959, Qupperneq 17

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
15
mile from the lake shore. He traded
a team of horses, with harness and wa-
gon, for a clear title to the land. By
this token my father became the first
Icelandic settler and landowner on the
west shore of Lake Manitoba.
After building a fair-sized cabin,
with log walls and sod roof, Father ob-
tained a job at the Henderson Ranch
one mile to the north of his new place.
His employment was at building a
shed and haymaking. The foreman of
the ranch was Joseph H. Metcalfe, an
Englishman of fine character and with
a pleasant personality and highly edu-
cated.
We now turn to the little village of
Millwood, where we three from
Thingvalla met Thordur Kolbeinson
on the appointed day. We made camp
for the night. We slept soundly, after
a long day of travel. Early next morn-
ing we were up and around, eager to
continue the long journey and meet
whatever lay ahead on the road that
was new to us all.
The cattle behaved very well and we
crossed the little bridge over the Shell
River without mishap. We passed
through the village, up the steep slopes
of the valley on the far side, and found
ourselves on the level prairie leading-
in the general direction of the town of
Binscarth.
Thordur Kolbeinson, being the
owner of the oxen and wagon, became
the recognized leader of the expedition.
It was agreed that we would take turns
in pairs driving the herd and riding
in the wagon. Maris and I were to-
gether. This would have been a very
satisfactory arrangement if carried out
with equal time for each shift, but 1
am quite certain that my chum and I
trudged longer periods and had shorter
resting spells than the two old cronies,
who seemed to forget themselves and
everything around them while remin
iscing about all the interesting things
that had happened to them in the old
country. However, ito grumble was
useless. We were reminded that we
were young and light of foot and it
should be fun for us to follow the
cattle in splendid weather such as we
were having.
So we tramped endlessly over the
country, crossing valleys, dipping down
from the level prairie into the steep-
sided valleys, then a long stretch of
prairie, sometimes dotted with good-
sized poplar bluffs, where the animals
at first gave us a certain amount of
trouble as they scattered among the
trees. After the first day, however, the
herd became trained to follow the wa-
gon and gave us little trouble. Mile
after mile was left behind without in-
cident and hours of strain were suc-
ceeded by hours of monotonous pro-
gress.
During the long silences my thoughts
would stray back to the old home-
stead which we had left behind, where
I had spent seven years of my youth,
sometimes in pleasant association of
boys and girls of my own age, in school
or at play, sometimes with weary days
of hard work that left me so utterly
exhausted that I lost all interest in my
surroundings and brought on a feeling
of hopelessness and depression, and the
longing to steal away, to lie down and
never to get up again. However, wak-
ing up each morning to a glorious sun-
rise and being greeted with a chorus
of a hundred voices coming from
feathered friends in a nearby poplar
bluff lifted the spirits and renewed
courage to face yet another day. “Hope
springs eternal in the human breast.”
Mother made all my clothes, also the
rawhide slippers for everyday use. In
the hot summer weather these would