The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2003, Side 14

56
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 58 #2
its other members, the Cultural Society did
signal a final break with the church in his
case. Moreover, the ostracism of him and
his family that resulted from his very pub-
lic dispute with the synod leadership, cou-
pled with poor agricultural conditions and
an economic downturn, surely contributed
to his decision to join the westward migra-
tion from Pembina County. Finally, his lit-
erary output increased, only to explode
once he reached Canada.
The year that North Dakota achieved
statehood, Stephansson moved once again,
this time to Markerville district in what was
then still Alberta Territory.19 When the
family first settled in their new home, the
nearest post office was reportedly seventy
miles away! He was to spend a little more
than half of his life on the farm that has
since become a shrine to those who love the
verses he composed there in the quiet still-
ness of the night.
Those who claim that Stephansson’s
individualism caused him to stand aloof
from organizations of any kind fail to
remember the numerous ways he was
involved in the community life of the
Markerville district. Among other involve-
ments, he was the founding chairman of the
Hola school district, secretary-treasurer of
the district’s creamery association, and the
area’s Justice of the Peace! Any one of
these offices would have marked him as a
community leader. His antipathy towards
political parties and religious movements
did not extend to the many other human
organizations that sought to promote the
common good. Practical initiatives to
improve the community were able to draw
him out of his study to add his efforts to
those of his neighbours. Addressing the
people of the Markerville district on New
Year’s Eve in 1891, he declared, “If we feel
our community lacks some amenities need-
ed to make it a more pleasant place, we can
do something about it. We know Nature
did not corral all hardships to leave them
near Red Deer. ... So, if we feel that some-
thing is amiss, let’s get our hands out of our
pockets and do something about it.”20
Stephansson’s family rarely attended
church in Markerville and, when they did,
it was for a funeral or to hear a visiting
minister from Winnipeg, especially if he
were a Unitarian. Despite his disdain for
the clergy, he developed a close and affec-
tionate personal relationship with
Rognvaldur Petursson, a Unitarian minis-
ter in Winnipeg who became the denomi-
nation’s field secretary for Western
Canada. Their friendship began in the first
decade of the new century and continued
until the end of the poet’s life. Petursson
was the son of neighbours in Dakota
Territory and was himself a gifted man of
letters. Stephansson sought Petursson’s
pastoral support when his son Gestur was
killed and he wished himself to be buried
by the Winnipeg minister, even naming
him as his literary executor. But while he
asked Petursson to send liberal ministers to
speak in Markerville, and while he
applauded the establishment of Unitarian
churches among the Icelanders, seeing the
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