The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1984, Side 42

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SUMMER, 1984
Framfari off the press at Lundi
(now Riverton).
— October 21. The first Icelandic
divine service in Winnipeg, con-
ducted by Reverend Jon Bjamason.
1878 — January 14. The revised constitu-
tion for New Iceland government
came into effect.
— June. An Icelandic settlement
commenced in Dakota, at Hallson.
— August 11. The first Lutheran
Church of Winnipeg organized,
the Trinity congregation (Thren-
ningar Sofnudurinn) formed in
Winnipeg.
1879 — Sigurdur Antonius, age 26, placed
second in a walking match, cover-
ing 132 miles in 24 hours. Several
other Icelandic newcomers distin-
guished themselves in these walk-
ing matches during the next dec-
ade.
— Before 1880 — a few Icelanders
in Selkirk. Settlement about 1884.
1880 — First Icelandic settlers in Argyle
file entry on homesteads.
— Courtesy of Logberg-
Heimskringla, January 17,
1974.
EDITOR’S NOTE
1955—THE FIRST PERMANENT SETTLE-
MENT OF ICELANDERS IN AMER-
ICA at Spanish Fork, Utah. See the
article by John Y. Beamson, The Ice-
landic Canadian, Summer, 1980.
For evidence that the descendants of the
settlers (after 129 years) still cherish their
Icelandic heritage, see the article A RE-
MARKABLE TEACHER by Margaret
Sherrod Beamson, The Icelandic Cana-
dian, Autumn, 1983.
I MET BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON
by Robert Louis Stevenson
I had gone to Norway with a number of
English journalists, and in Christiania had
struck up a friendship with one of the
younger writers of the day, Mr. Rosen-
crantz Johnson, who belonged to a group
calling themselves the Bohemes, whose
darling desire, like similar leagues of youth
before and since, was to epater la bour-
geoisie. Mr. Johnson was a friend of
Bjomson’s and suggested our paying him a
visit in company.
Bjomson lived near Lillehammer, in a
pine-clad valley at the end of a beautiful
lake, which we crossed in the early morn-
ing, arriving at Aulestad — Bjomson’s
home — in one of those tiny buggies called
carioles, before breakfast time. Aulestad
was a big verandaed house on the side of a
wooded slope, and as we climbed up to it,
there was our host with his leonine head
and great shaggy white hair awaiting us,
his arms stretched out in welcome, like a
patriarch — though, as a matter of fact, he
was little beyond sixty. He was an im-
pressive figure of a man, with his broad
sturdy shoulders, his eyes and nose like an
eagle’s — half lion, half eagle, so to say —
suggesting immense strength and magnetic
force. He seemed, indeed, like a hero from
the old Scandinavian sagas come to life
again, and as he embraced us we felt swept
up into a larger, keener air. We noticed that
he carried a bath towel over his shoulder,
which he immediately explained.
“lam off for my bath in the woods,” he
said. “Will you join me?” He talked
English, I may say, like an Englishman.
It was a heroic welcome, but we were
game; and presently the three of us were
trampling through the woods, till we came
where the mountain stream fell in a torrent
of white water down the face of a rock.