The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.2004, Qupperneq 15

Vol. 58 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
109
Mud-Sandy Bar region was the northern-
most hunting and fishing grounds of the
Netley Creek people. Just north of the
White Mud River, from Grindstone Point
to Jackhead River, were Saulteaux from the
Lake St. Martin and Berens River areas.
Later, the population of Fisher River was
comprised of Cree from Norway House
and Saulteaux from St Peters and Netley
Creek. (The Icelandic Deputation that vis-
ited the White Mud area in 1875 referred to
“Norway House Indians,” which makes it
difficult to make a final determination as to
this group’s origins.)
Icelandic settlement in Canada began
with Sigtryggur Jonasson’s arrival in 1872.
Although it was not his intention,
Sigtryggur was destined to become the
leader of Icelandic settlement in Canada.
His first step in this direction came when
the Ontario government asked him to act
as their agent and greet 365 Icelanders
arriving in Quebec City in September 1874.
He helped transport this group to
Kinmount, in Ontario’s Muskoka District.
A smaller group had arrived in Canada in
1873; some moved on to Wisconsin, and
115 settled near Rosseau, also in Muskoka.
The settlements at Rosseau and
Kinmount were unsuccessful. The land was
too poor for farming. Wage labour was
scarce, housing pitiful, and many of the
children died during the winter for lack of
proper nutrition. During the summer of
1875, five Icelandic men travelled west to
Manitoba to find land for an exclusively
Icelandic block settlement, or reserve. John
Taylor, an unordained pastor working at a
Bible Society shantytown, accompanied
them and was appointed by the govern-
ment as their agent. On 20 July, they chose
a site on the west shore of Lake Winnipeg,
an area approximately 12 miles wide and 48
miles long, extending north from what was
then the Manitoba boundary at Selkirk to
include Hecla Island. (A few months earli-
er, a Norwegian delegation, also seeking
land to settle, rejected the same land as
unfit for habitation.)
The first party of Icelanders arrived at
the forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers
in Winnipeg on 11 October 1875, three
days after a Dominion Order-in-Council
granted the reserve. They learned that
Taylor had not made any arrangements for
their provisioning, and a debate ensued as
to the wisdom of continuing on to Lake
Winnipeg via the Red River so close to
winter’s beginning. A few stayed in the
immigration sheds in Winnipeg. The rest
wanted to go immediately to Icelandic
River, but rough waters forced them to
land near present-day Gimli. There they
spent the first harsh winter, poorly sup-
plied and lacking appropriate survival
skills. When spring came - it was delayed
that year, and the ice did not leave the
rivers until late May - some returned to
Winnipeg. Three families continued on to
Icelandic River, where they met John
Ramsay and his people.
Narratives of the Past
The most thorough documentation in
recent published form of the encounter
with John Ramsay and his people is found
in Nelson Gerrard’s Icelandic River Saga.
Writer and poet Kristjana Gunnars has
given it a literary interpretation by means
of a meditation on ghosts. Other versions
of the story told from an Icelandic point of
view are to be found in other histories.
They appear to draw on the same source as
does Gerrard, who translates the reminis-
cences of Fridrik Sveinsson, which were
published in Thorleif Jacksson (Porleifur
joakimsson), Fra Austri til Vesturs (From
East to West). Fridrik was 11 years of age
when he and his family claimed the land at
Icelandic River on which the Sandy Bar-
White Mud Saulteaux, including John
Ramsay and his family, were living and
gardening. It is not clear how long after the
fact Fridrik wrote down his memories. If
he wrote specifically for publication in
1919, then they are memories of events
going back 43 years. No other eyewitness
accounts exist to provide corroboration.
Fridrik tells of how Olafur Qlafsson
(who named the site of original settlement
“Gimli”), Johannes Sigurdson, Flovent
Jonsson and their families came to
Icelandic River during the early summer of
1876, after the hard first winter spent near
Gimli. Although Fridrik does not mention