The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1995, Page 52

162
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SPRING/SUMMER 1995
left him, as he also belonged to someone
else. The threshing crew chief also cheated
us a bit, so our wages were scarcely enough
for a ticket back to Winnipeg, where I ar-
rived once again with empty pockets. It was
not unusual at that time for those who
worked for English threshing crews in Da-
kota to be short-changed on their pay even
though they promised higher wages than
the Icelanders.
The next winter I rented a dairy (due to
my ignorance of conditions in the area)
only to find that there was a severe hay
shortage in the area and my expenses were
so high that I made no profit.
I once went out to work on railway con-
struction with a group of ten or twenty
other Icelanders, among them Halldor
Bardal the bookseller, Gestur Johannsson
from MiSfjorbur, Pall the wrestler, and
other lively and interesting fellows, really a
wonderful group oflcelanders. We ate well
there, but our Irish foreman saw to it that
that was the only positive thing to be said
for the job. I knew little English at the time,
but had to answer for the group all the same
as best I could. After a short time I was fired,
along with seven others, at a spot some sixty
to seventy miles from Winnipeg. We were
to walk all the way back, and they refused
to let us ride a freight train travelling empty
to the next town (Morris). I told my com-
rades to get on board the freight, and after
a lot of cursing and shouting the English-
men had no choice but to let us stay there.
We sat there, travelling through a down-
pour and piercing north wind, arriving in
Morris at midnight in complete darkness,
strangers, with no money, carrying our bed-
rolls with us. We saw no alternative but to
continue on our way with our things. Fi-
nally we stopped for the night under a
bridge, and lightning struck all around our
miserable shelter, so we considered our-
selves lucky to be alive. The next day the
sky was perfectly clear with no wind at all,

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