The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1974, Page 9

Editorial
The Winnipeg Centennial
by W. Kristjanson
This year the City of Winnipeg
celebrates its one hundred years of hi-
story. Next year the people of Iceland-
ic descent in Manitoba will celebrate
the centennial of their arrival in the
Province, in Winnipeg, on October 11,
1875, and at Willow Point on the
21st of the month. For virtually one
hundred years the history of the Ice-
landic people in Winnipeg has been
a part of the history of the city.
When Winnipeg was incorporated
and when the first Icelandic settlers
arrived, on the Red River stern-
wheeler The International and the
flatboats in its tow, the population of
the city numbered some 2,000. Perhaps
upwards of fifty of the first Icelandic
party remained in Winnipeg when
the main party proceeded north and
by 1879 their number had increased
to some 500-600.
Icelandic newcomers at first made
a humble but essential contribution
to the economic life of the city. They
were employed mainly in casual
manual labor such as sawing wood,
loading fire-wood on the river steam-
ers, and digging sewers. Some were em-
ployed at the Brown and Rutherford
lumber mill, the source of many pieces
of lumber for the buildings of Ice-
landic Shanty Town on the Hudson’s
Bay Company flats, east of Main
Street and between Broadway and Wa-
ter Street. A few were clerks in stores
and others soon became skilled carpen-
ters. Many of the women were em
ployed in domestic service. By the
Winnipeg Boom of 1880-1882 several
were actively involved in the hectic
real estate speculation of that time.
With the passing of the years, the
Icelandic people became actively in-
volved in the various other phases of
city life, in business, education, med-
icine, law, scientific research, music,
sports and athletics and public life.
They helped to build the city.
Some specific events may be men-
tioned. Probably the first house built
by an Icelander in Winnipeg was the
one in Shanty Town, near Broadway,
built by Fridrik Sigurbjornsson in
1876. As the flamboyant Francis Evans
Cornish, first mayor of Winnipeg, in
1874, i.s remembered as a pioneer, so
is Sigurbjornsson, from Iceland and
the Icelandic settlement in Ontario,
to be remembered as a pioneer. Arni
Frederickson had a store and shoe re-
pair shop at 403% Main St., in 1879.
Fie was city alderman in 1892. Sigurd-
ur Antonius placed second in a 24-hour
Go —as—you—please contest in 1879,
covering 132 miles in the 24 hours.
Some twenty Icelanders enlisted for
active service in the North-West
Rebellion of 1885, mainly from Win-
nipeg. The Icelandic Celebration of
1890 attracted considerable attention;
at that time there were 3000 Icelanders
in the city. Active in the Woman Suf-
ferage movement before and after the