The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1974, Page 21

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
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be arrested and tried for treason. He
escaped to Norway in a Norwegian
tramp vessel. From Norway he made
his way to America and when I first
heard of him he was working on a
farm in the Norwegian settlement
called Muskego in Racine county,
Wisconsin. I invited him to visit mp
and I remember he went with me to
Moscow, Iowa county, Wisconsin,
where we both spoke on the 17th of
May.
Young Olafsson was highly educated.
He was well versed in the ancient
classics and spoke fluently both Danish
and English. With him I took a
strenuous course in Icelandic, reading
long parts of the eddas and sagas and
also of modern Icelandic literature.
He remained with us about two weeks
and then returned to his work in Mus-
kego. His career in this country was
most remarkable. He had conceived
the idea that it would be a splendid
thing for the Icelanders to emigrate
in a body to Alaska. In emigrating
from and abandoning Iceland they
would escape Danish tyranny and be-
sides find better soil and a finer
climate than in Iceland. But how to
carry out this idea, that was the great
problem. Prof. Willard Fiske of Cor-
nell University and I equipped him
with letters to Washington, but after
getting there he would have to fight
his own battles. After he got to the
seat of our government he elbowed his
way to members of congress, to United
States senators and members of cabin-
et and even got an audience and inter-
view with President Grant. He told
all of them that he wanted the 70,000
people in Iceland to leave the homes
they and their forebears had occupied
for a thousand years and settle in Al-
aska. He made it appear that the idea
was perfectly practicable. And what
happened? Jon Olafsson received an
appointment from President Grant to
take two other Icelanders with him
and proceed at once to Alaska to sel-
ect a site for a settlement. A United
States revenue cutter was placed at his
service and provisions made for the
necessary travel in Alaska.
Jon Olafsson and his companions
made the journey. Of the trip and of
the Alaskan country in general Olafs-
son wrote in Icelandic a ponderous
report. It was a large octavo pamphlet
of, I think, not less than 200 pages.
This was ordered printed by the gov-
ernment in an edition of several thou-
sand copies. In the meantime Jon Ol-
afsson through diplomatic correspon-
dence had received full pardon for his
treasonable poem and so could return
to Iceland unmolested.
The president of the United States
sent him to his native land with a
cargo of his pamphlet on Alaska. On
his arrival home he at once began to
agitate in favor of emigration to Al-
aska and distributed his pamphlet. But
neither his preaching nor his pamphlet
had any other effect than to make him
the butt of ridicule. His audiences
hissed him and he was, by way of dis-
paragement called “Jon Olafsson Al-
aska-fari,” i.e. “Alaska-farer”. The
whole enterprise was a colossal failure
and fell flat. Not a single Icelander
was found willing to give up his Ice-
land home in exchange for one in Al-
aska.
Jon Olafsson remained in Iceland,
started a newspaper and lived there
until in the early ’90s when he again
visited America, living most of the
time in Chicago and then a short time
in Madison, Was. Here he edited a
Norwegian paper published by O. S.
Buslett. Then he returned to Iceland
where he still lives.
A,s above indicated Iceland obtained
home rule in 1874 and Jon Olafsson