The Icelandic Canadian - 01.04.1988, Qupperneq 20

18
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SPRING, 19S8
three-part, 500 page novel and literally
dozens of short stories. Its literary impact
was far out of proportion to its economic
or social one.
Jdhann Magnus Bjarnason arrived in
Halifax 29 October 1875. Though only
nine years old, he had doubtless seen his
share of hard times by then. For this period
would mark the first time since the Viking
Age that the Icelanders became “boat
people” on a large scale. From the 1870’s
to the outbreak of the First World War
over 14,000 of them would travel “west
over the sea” to escape hunger, repression,
and volcanic fall-out. And though he was
not an orphan like the eponymous hero of
his Eirikur Hansson (his novel set in Nova
Scotia), he was no stranger to the poverty
and grim conditions he described. For
though his parents survived his childhood,
his siblings did not. Only one of his eight
brothers and sisters would survive into
adulthood, and she died a little over
twenty.
Though his earliest childhood memories
were of Iceland, J.M.B.’s Markland years
were his formative ones. He received three
years of education under Alexander Wil-
son, a schoolmaster from the Orkneys who
did not spare the rod. Doubtless some of
his taskmaster is reflected in old Cracknell,
the teacher who terrorizes Eirikur Hansson
and his classmates with his switch, his bel-
lowed “Palman qui feruit merat” (which
always preceded a beating), and his habit
of wearing certain kinds of hats when he
was especially angry (which also preceded
a beating). Yet Jdhann Magnus Bjarnason
has kind words for Wilson too, just as for
Cracknell. Perhaps his own experiences on
the other side of the classroom later in life
made him more sympathetic to those who
taught and beat him. Or perhaps there was
an affinity between the Icelander and the
Orkneyingur that goes back to their Old
Norse roots. Whatever the case, a hundred
years later in the Musquodoboit Valley
(just north of Markland) they still tell tales
of this fearsome teacher (though he seems
to have taught only Icelanders), a lesson
for all who would enter that profession.
As it was, Bjarnason would earn his
living as a teacher. When he and his family
moved to Winnipeg following the collapse
of the Markland settlement in 1882, he
was able to complete the necessary educa-
tion to become a teacher. From 1889-1922
(except for a stint as a housebuilder’s book-
keeper in Vancouver 1912-15) he taught at
a variety of Icelandic settlements in Mani-
toba, North Dakota, and Saskatchewan.
What precisely made J.M. Bjarnason
into a writer is of course mysterious, like
all artistic callings. His came early. He
notes in his diary that he was writing (and
just as quickly destroying) plays as early as
1881 (back in Nova Scotia). In 1888
(1887) came his first published poem
“Tofrakastalinn” — “The Enchanted
Castle.” Thereafter there is no turning
back. Over the next 57 years he would
produce three major novels, 20 plays, and
hundreds of articles, poems, essays, and
short stories. He also maintained an exten-
sive correspondence with the leading Ice-
landic-Canadian cultural figures of his
day, such as Stephan G. Stephansson. He
did this, moreover, as a sideline from his