The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.2005, Page 11

Vol. 59 #4
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
137
Eric’s Saga
by Eric Olafson
This year being Saskatchewan’s 100th
birthday, is seems only fitting to celebrate
the 100th anniversary of the Vatnabyggd
settlement, too. I want to preface this article
by saying that much of the material gath-
ered here has been done by researching
other writings. I am using my memory and
the other resources that may or may not be
factual. So this can be referred to as Eric’s
Saga. Now I will give you the Reader’s
Digest version of the history of the
Icelanders in the western part of the
Vatnabyggd settlement by using some of
my family’s histories
In September 1905, my paternal afi,
Bjarni Olafson homesteaded on the south
western part of the settlement on NE-28-
31-18. He had emigrated from
Nupsdalstunga as a one-year-old with his
family in 1887 and first settled at Gimli. He
and his brother arrived at Sheho, the end of
the train line and continued overland a dis-
tance of 60 miles to their homestead. Think
about this for a moment. He was 19 years
old with a 17-year-old brother. They set
out across uninhabited land to south of
Dafoe. They were part of a huge influx of
Icelandic pioneers to settle this area. They
chose to settle in the western part of the set-
tlement since the land was more open and
ready for the plough. The eastern part had
more bush and sloughs. That choice at the
time had merit as far as getting land broken
quickly but it turned into a bit of a disaster
when the drought of the ‘30’s arrived. In
1914 he married Olgeirina Kjarval. Olga
came to Canada in 1912 and met my afi
when she was working as a hired girl at one
of the neighbours. They had five children.
Joe and Carl became farmers. They farmed
in the area until death or retirement. Helgi
and Norman became entrepreneurs and
eventually were in business in British
Columbia and Alberta. The youngest boy,
Gestur, died at the age of two. Marino was
born to Barney and his second wife,
Kirstine. He became a carpenter in British
Columbia.
My maternal afi, Thorstein Gauti
arrived in Wynard in 1914. He had original-
ly homesteaded in North Dakota, moved to
Lundar and Stuartburn, Manitoba, back to
Pembina, North Dakota before coming to
Wynard where he operated a dairy farm
north of Wynard.
He married Aslaug Jonsdottir from
Myri and they raised ten children. They
became teachers, hairdressers, homemakers,
farmers, fishermen and stenographers.
Three daughters stayed in the district and
raised families on farms. The rest of the
family dispersed to British Columbia,
Alberta and Ontario.
My dad, Joe, was a farmer all his life
except for a stint in the army in World War
II. My mother, Nanna Gauti was a school-
teacher. She met Dad when she was teach-
ing at Mimer School. She was boarding at
the Joe Josephson home, the big white
house north of #16 Highway, west of
Kandahar. Little did they know that in 1950
they would move to that home and raise
their five children there. Joanne lives in
Edmonton, Elaine lives in Canora, Edie in
Saskatoon and myself on a farm 2 miles
from where we were raised and Len,
deceased, lived in Winnipeg.
Our family, I think is typical of the
Icelandic Canadians in the Vatnabyggd area
who originally came to homestead and raise
families and then moved on to other pur-
suits. My cousin Arlan and I are the only
descendants of the original pioneers to
farm. This year I have finally got over my “
farmeritis” , as I call it, and have rented out
my grainland. I still have a small herd of elk
on the farm and work for the Provincial
Government as a crop adjuster. Presently
only one other cousin of our generation,
Shirley Ann Laxdal, lives in the
Vatnabyggd area. I married a young
woman, Karen whose grandmother was an