The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1994, Page 10

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SPRING, 1994
ranks. By 1893, Winnipeg, Mani-
toba’s capital, had become “a city
every eighth of whose inhabitants is
an Icelander.”
The first years in the new land
were difficult ones for the Icelandic
immigrants. These were years of
hardships and inconveniences. The
sudden change in climate and diet,
especially the lack of milk, and
crowded living quarters, took their
toll on the health of the newcomers.
While in Kinmount, Ontario there
was an incidence of a severe stomach
disorder, and all the children under
the age of two along with some of the
older people died, the total number
being upwards of thirty. In New
Iceland the newcomers were greeted
by mud and pestilential swarms of
flies, and within the first five years of
the settlement they had experienced
a smallpox epidemic and a major
flood. The smallpox epidemic spread
to all parts of the colony with only
eleven or twelve houses out of one
hundred unaffected. The total
number of deaths was just over one
hundred although one-third to one-
half of the population contracted the
disease. Many of the immigrants did
without milk for two years due to the
shortage of cattle in New Iceland.
When the “Great Flood” of November
5, 1880 occurred, at a farm house
just north of Gimli, water rose almost
to the level of the bed of a woman
who lay in childbirth.
As each new group of immigrants
passed through Winnipeg on the way
to New Iceland, many of the single,
young women remained behind
where they soon came to be in great
demand as domestic servants. The
young women immediately had to
master the art of cooking and house-
work in the Canadian way. Without
the medium of a common language
this was often difficult. And, not
surprisingly, wages for domestic
servants who had some command of
English were twice the amount paid
those who had none. Icelandic
children were accustomed to contri-
buting their earnings to the support
of the family and so these young
women often sent part or all of their
earnings home to families in New
Iceland.
Three observations, therefore,
come as no surprise. One, that the
Icelandic immigrants to Manitoba
should become interested in woman
suffrage, for the movement for equal
rights of men and women was
already well afoot in Iceland at the
time of the immigration to Canada;
two, that Icelandic suffrage workers
should play such a prominent part in
the campaign for woman suffrage in
Manitoba for Icelanders constituted a
considerable portion of the pop-
ulation; and three, that the women
should wish to seek improvements to
lives fraught with a sense of isolation
and hopelessness grown out of
sickness, death and poverty in
primitive conditions that they were
powerless to control. What does come
as a surprise is that they found the
energy and possessed the stamina to
take on yet another struggle.
Icelandic immigrant women were
active in community life from the
beginning, playing an important part
in the congregation, in the Sunday
School and in the Icelandic Society.
When the Icelandic Society was
founded in Winnipeg on September
6, 1877, women joined along with
men “to promote the honour of the
Icelandic people on this Continent
and to preserve and cultivate among
the Icelanders the liberal and
progressive spirit of culture which
has throughout the ages char-
acterized the Icelandic nation.” In
addition to sponsoring a Sunday
school, the Society worked to help
new immigrants and the poor in the