The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.2003, Qupperneq 33

Vol. 58 #1
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
31
Profile: Sigurbjorg Stefansson
by Borga Jakobson
Sigurbjorg Stefansson was born on
Nov. 13th, 1895 at Mountain, North
Dakota. Her parents were Helgi Stefansson
and Thuridur Jonsdottir.
In May 1905 the family moved to Quill
Lake district of Assiniboia, close to pre-
sent-day Wynyard, Saskatchewan.
In an article published by Nordra
School District # 1947 (Sask.) Miss
Stefansson wrote about her family and
described their first experiences in Canada.
“The first while we lived in a tent.... The
cookstove was placed close to some nearby
bushes and all cooking was done in the
open. For some years to come our main
food was a tasty stew of grouse or rabbit
for which father hunted frequently
...Father set about felling, trimming and
hauling trees and constructed a one room
log cabin dug up to the windowsills into
the hill on the west side, roofed with
saplings, straw and clay and chinked with
moss. He had brought enough lumber for a
floor with a trap-door leading to an earth-
cellar below.”
She goes on to say, “(Father) earned his
full homestead rights, added a living room
and bedroom of lumber to the log cabin,
and a stone and timber barn with hen house
added.”
Of her mother she says, “All the spe-
cial dishes of Iceland appeared on the table
... She held subscriptions to needlecraft
and flower growing magazines. Father
fenced off a plot by the house for her flow-
ers, and new ones were tried every
year....While the days were filled with
work, the evenings, at least in winter, were
for the mind and soul. My parents were
both fond of reading and had books in
Icelandic, Danish and Norwegian, besides
weeklies in both Icelandic and English.”
Her pioneer experience explains her
prevailing interest in Icelandic culture and
history and explains also her empathy and
respect for immigrants from other ethnic
backgrounds.
She says her father worked with oth-
ers founding the Nordra School and was
influential in having a course in Icelandic
taught there.
The family lived in Wynyard for
eleven years. Her father died in 1916 after a
lengthy illness. Shortly after that the wid-
owed mother and daughter were visited by
Mrs. Sigridur Bjerring, a relative, who
helped the two women to make a move to
Winnipeg and encouraged Sigurbjorg to
apply for admission to Wesley College. At
the college there Sigurbjorg distinguished
herself as an excellent student.
Early in life, Miss Stefansson chose
teaching as her career. She taught first in
one-room rural schools. Then she joined
the staff of the Gimli School, where she
served until her retirement.
The Gimli Women’s Institute present-
ed a beautiful portrait of Miss Stefansson
to the school that bears her name and the
dedication that goes with the portrait reads
as follows:
“Miss Sigurbjorg Stefansson came to
Gimli in 1922, to teach in the former two-
room high school section of the Gimli
Public School. She taught here for more
than forty years, specializing in English,
French, Latin and Icelandic. Miss
Stefansson’s knowledge of her work, her
firm method of conducting her classes and
her outstanding character have influenced
several generations of Gimli students to
attain their highest potential both academi-
cally and in the development of good citi-
zenship. The esteem with which Miss
Stefansson has always been held by the
school children was made evident in a com-
petition to name the schools held by the
Gimli Women’s Institute in 1967 when the
most popular name for the former
Collegiate in which she had taught was the