The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.2003, Page 42

40
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 58 #1
Errand Boy in the
Mooseland Hills
By Johann Magnus Bjarnason
Halifax, NS: Formac Publishing Co., 2001
184p.
Translation of Vorna:tur I Elgsheidum,
2d. ed., 1970, by Borga Jakobson.
Reviewed by lillian vilborg
There are fourteen stories in this col-
lection. They all take place in Nova Scotia
around 1880, and are told from the point of
view of a young boy in his early teens.
“That was in the summer of 1880, and I was
fourteen years old,” the storyteller says in
“Sighvatur.”
Johann Magnus tells these stories in an
informal “when I was young ...” manner.
He begins "Boy Burns” saying "For eight
months in 1880, I boarded with Icelandic
miners who worked ... in Tangier, Nova
Scotia." In the story called "Abraham
Burt” he says “I would like to say a few
words about a man I knew briefly when I
was a boy in Nova Scotia ...”
Each tale centres on a person, usually
Icelandic, but not always, who has some
interesting quirk to his character, or an
unusual twist to his story. The characters
are often “lone wolves” living separate
from the Icelandic community. Sometimes,
as in “Bessi,” an act of heroism endears the
Icelander to the “foreign” family. The
errand boy hears Mr. Balfour say of the
young man who stayed with him,
“Eyvindur Atli is a fine young man. If you
do anything for him, he does more than
thank you with words.” Hakon Farmann
received great kindness and caring from
Duncan Campbell. Indeed the young man
saved his life. In return Hakon saved
Duncan from financial disaster. In
exchange Hakon had a home for life. In
some of the stories, the characters return to
Iceland, in others, as in the Hakon
Farmann story, something gets in the way
of their returning. In “An Old Sea Wolf”