The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1995, Qupperneq 40

150
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SPRING/SUMMER 1995
some gray in it; he had blue eyes, a high
forehead with receding temples, and a
large, straight nose. He had thick whiskers
on his cheeks and chin. The jaw was strong
and the cheekbones high and his mouth
extremely handsome. In his younger years
he must have been a very fine man, strong
and vigorous. He said he was born in the
north of Iceland and had been sailing as
an ordinary seaman since he was about
twenty years of age. But in the fall of 1869,
he was shipwrecked not far from the mouth
of the Nelson River and after many trials,
arrived at Fort Garry just before freeze-up.
He said he was a man of faith, following
Protestant teachings. He bore his illness,
which was painful, with the utmost patience
and courage. He winced little and very sel-
dom complained, but waited for death like
a champion and a true Christian. He knew
no French but spoke English with a strange
accent, which was not unusual, since he was
out of school when he began to learn that
language. I often had trouble understand-
ing him because of his pronunciation and
also because I did not know English very
well. Although I spoke garbled English, he
seemed to understand every single word I
spoke. From that I conclude that he was
bright and quick though he was not col-
lege educated.
Mr. Berg had nothing with him except
a small, old leather suitcase which was tied
with rope because the lock was broken and
the handle was torn off. This suitcase con-
tained new white woollen underclothing,
twenty-five small sheets of blue writing pa-
per, a small bar of sealing wax, two ordi-
nary pencils, a small compass and one old
book with a leather binding. The book was
nine inches long and seven inches wide and
about an inch thick. There were three hun-
dred and eight pages in it. The print was
Gothic type, very beautiful, and the paper
was excellent. There had once been gold
lettering on the back but it was now faded
and unreadable. According to the letters
on the title page, the name of the book was
Huss-postilla, printed in Copenhagen by
L.S. Moller in 1829. Mr. Berg told me the
book was in Icelandic and contained ser-
mons for all the holidays and the Sunday
gospels for the whole year, by the Icelan-
dic bishop, Mag. Jon Thorkelsson Vidalin.
— There was also a writing book with a thin
black leather cover, seven inches long and
four inches wide. There were sixty-four
sheets in it with only nineteen written on.
The writing was in Icelandic or some other
language other than French, English or
Latin. — Mr. Berg was clothed thus when
he came to the abbey: he was wearing blue
woollen outer clothing of English home-
spun, woollen underclothing and woollen
socks. On his head was an old beaverskin
cap, on his feet moccasins with heart-
shaped decorations on the instep, on His
hands thin mittens of coarse yarn and
leather gloves, around his neck a Scottish
scarf and over all a short cloak of deerskin.
In addition, he was wrapped in a wool blan-
ket and a bearskin while he was on the
sleigh on the way from Fort Garry. The
wool blanket and the bearskin belonged to
Godson and Villon. — In Mr. Berg’s pock-
ets were two blue polka-dot handkerchiefs,
a small pen-knife and a purse which con-
tained five dollars and eighty cents. Also,
in his breast pocket was a sealed letter with
an Icelandic address on it. Unfortunately,
I did not memorize the name on the letter,
but I do remember it was a long foreign
name.
I have little to say about Godson and
Villon. They were about twenty years of age,
robust but frivolous in appearance. God-
son was tall and thin, but Villon was short
and stout. They remained for two days in
the abbey and then continued to the city
of St. Paul. I saw neither of them after that.
Mr. Berg had a lengthy private talk with
Godson before he left and asked him to
take two letters, one big and the other
small, which were supposed to go to Ice-
land, and gave him, with me as witness, sev-
enty-five cents for postage. Mr. Berg had