The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.2004, Qupperneq 11

Vol. 58 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
105
Dreams and Claims
Icelandic-Aboriginal Interactions in the Manitoba Interlake
by Ann Brydon
“All profound changes in con-
sciousness, by their very nature,
bring with them characteristic
amnesias. Out of such oblivions, in
specific historical circumstances,
spring narratives.”
- Benedict Anderson (204)
An Aboriginal man named John
Ramsay figures prominently in contempo-
rary Icelandic-Canadian accounts of the
relationship between Icelanders and Native
Peoples during the years immediately after
Icelandic settlement in the Manitoba
Interlake, which began in October 1875. In
the story, Trausti Vigfusson obeys the
ghost of John Ramsay after the ghost
comes to him in a dream. In 1910, Trausti
dreamt that the recently deceased Ramsay
requested he attend the neglected grave of
his wife, Betsey, who had died with four of
their five children2 during the 1876 small-
pox epidemic. The figure of Ramsay
emerged from the forest and told Trausti he
wanted a fence built around her grave, as is
the practice of Aboriginal groups in that
region. Trausti, a carpenter, had the ability
but lacked the financial means. In the
dream he protested to Ramsay that he was
poor and the grave distant. Why couldn’t
Ramsay approach other carpenters who
were more established? Ramsay replied
that Trausti was the only person with
whom he could communicate.
In October 1997 and February 1998, I
spoke with Trausti’s 97-year-old daughter
Tota (Porunn) Vigfusson. She recalls the
seriousness with which her father, mother
and grandmother discussed the responsi-
bility the dream placed on Trausti. He
saved the wood piece by piece until he had
enough pickets cut for the fence. It took
him years to complete the task. In the
account written by Icelandic-Canadian
journalist Kristine Kristofferson, Trausti
had to be reminded a second time by
Ramsay’s ghost. This makes for a more
dramatic narrative but is not accurate:
according to his daughter, Trausti recog-
nized immediately the necessity of obedi-
ence. He related the story of his dream to
anyone who would listen, until his brother
told him he was making a fool of himself.
But when Gestur Gudmundsson, owner of
the land on which the grave lay, heard tell
of the dream, he hastened to supply Trausti
with the oxen to drag the fencing to the
site. Kristofferson says that Trausti’s luck
changed once he fixed the grave. I asked
Tota if this were true. She replied, with an
ironic smile, “I don’t know about that, but
he certainly felt better.”
The story of Trausti’s dream has been
told and retold, typically with interpretive
add-ons and factual errors, as a means of
demonstrating the good relations between
natives and newcomers. It had been circu-
lating in the Icelandic community for years
before Kristofferson wrote it as a Winnipeg
Free Press human-interest story in 1967. Its
publication prompted Icelandic-Canadians
to build a monument at the grave located
east of Riverton. In 1989 the grave was
again restored and designated a Manitoba
Municipal Heritage Site. We do know that
an individual’s dream gradually trans-
formed into a cultural narrative about the
Icelandic-Canadian past. But we cannot
know for certain the motivations of those
people who cannot now speak for them-
selves. My goal is make sense of their
actions by placing them in a broader social
and cultural context. This context is not
only Icelandic; it is also Aboriginal, a point
Icelandic-Canadian writers have thus far
ignored.