The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.2004, Blaðsíða 28

70
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 59 #2
Letters from FriSjon FriSriksson
Translated by Sigurbjorg Stefansson
Fridjon Fridriksson
Letter #18
Gimli, June 6, 1880
Dear Friends:
In my latest mail, I received your cor-
dial letter written on the 4th of May on the
Atlantic Ocean and which is mailed in
Edinburgh on the 8th. Our thoughts have
been with you all the time, and from time
to time we have, indeed, been wishing that
we could actually be with you. Oh, how we
have felt with you, dear sister suffering so
much from seasickness. I would just have
been too glad to be able to take some of this
seasickness upon myself, but now you have
hopefully recovered - gained back your
strength and cheerfulness, the illness is
over, has passed, disappeared - just like
everything else disappears - comfortable
and uncomfortable. I only fear that the
memories of this seasickness will discour-
age you from coming back west, soon. Our
thoughts have accompanied you on the
way, and now we leave you in the hands of
your friends who give you undoubtedly a
warm welcome.
Do you remember our leave-taking? I
remember it clearly and shall continue to
remember it for a long time. Since you left
I have been unusually depressed. I, howev-
er, am feeling much better than most, I
think. I realize that I should be grateful to
God for a lot of things, but I tend to forget
the positive side of life dwelling on the neg-
ative one.
In terms of weather, this spring has
been the worst one since we came here. We
had frost and storms until the middle of
May, followed by pouring rain and frost
during the nights until the end of May.
Since then the temperature has been com-
fortable and there has been no rain, but
since the temperature has been rather low
the farmers are bound to get into difficul-
ties. The soil was extremely wet, but now it
is gradually becoming dry. The catch of
fish was very good leaving everyone
enough to eat. Nevertheless, general dissat-
isfaction has never been worse and more
people are moving away than ever before.
Twenty families have moved or are
about to move from the Vidines district.
That is one fourth of those 80 who lived
here last winter. Most likely more are going
to leave. There are not nearly as many
moving from the other districts. Most of
those who move go to Dakota. Some, how-
ever, settle down in Winnipeg, for a while,
because of finanacial difficulties preventing
them to go on to Dakota.
I am just about to lose all hope in any
kind of progress here and have even started
to encourage people to move away - mind
you - only those who have some means.
The others are absorbed by the “Synod”