The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.2005, Síða 13

Vol. 59 #4
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
139
Audrey Axdal, now Audrey Sheperd, was
the last teacher to teach there in 1962.
Many of the Icelandic Canadians could
only speak Icelandic when they started
school and I recall my dad telling me about
being teased since he did not know any
English. Living on the western fringe of the
Vatnabyggd settlement, most of his class-
mates were not Icelandic. I often think his
experience in being unable to speak English
when he started school led my parents to
not teach us Icelandic. My cousins from
Grandy could speak a bit of Icelandic. I
think it was because there was much less of
a stigma attached to it in the areas where
Icelanders dominated the population.
Another reason that my parents did not
teach us Icelandic was that they could say
things in Icelandic that we were not sup-
posed to hear! In fact, in Nordra School a
course in Icelandic was taught, since per-
mission was granted by the North West
Territory to teach any foreign language
from 3-4 PM on any schooldays selected by
the trustees.
The Vatnabyggd settlement originally
had numerous schools when the rural pop-
ulation was large. As the rural population
declined and better roads were constructed,
the small schools were closed and were then
centralized in small towns until presently
all schools are located in Wynard and Foam
Lake. Education was very important to the
early settlers and continues to be to this
day. Many of the original settlers were well
educated. I have often heard that some of
the Icelanders were much better poets and
musicians than they were farmers. Imagine
reading a book instead of ploughing a field
or milking a cow! This notion of education
and literacy can be traced back to our roots
in Iceland, where a thousand years ago, illit-
eracy was abolished. Apparently, when
Icelanders were packing to leave for
Canada, if the choice was between tools or
books, since space was limited, they chose
books.
Like other pioneer communities,
churches were also organized. Icelandic
immigrants were brought up in the
Lutheran State Church of Iceland, which
was considered relatively liberal. All
Iceland congregations in America were at
first patterned on this model. In 1885 the
Icelandic Lutheran Synod was formed in
Mountain, North Dakota which subscribed
to the views of the church of Iceland and in
a vote of 18 to 8 with one absent and 2
abstaining granted women equal rights with
men. They were progressive. The Quill
Lakes congregation in 1907 applied for
membership and was accepted into the
Lutheran Synod. In 1909 they withdrew
their affiliation and kept in close touch with
the state church of Iceland, whose views
were more liberal and more in line with
theirs. Over the years ministers from
Iceland serviced the Quill Lakes Free
Church congregation. Much turmoil was in
the church until about 1920 when the
Unitarian movement in Winnipeg orga-
nized in the First Federated Church of the
Icelanders in Winnipeg. Consequently the
Quill Lake congregation joined the
Federated Church movement. On Main
Street in Wynyard still stands the Federated
Church—A Provincial Heritage site. In the
early years, since it was the biggest building
in town, it was used extensively as a meet-
ing place for large groups. As a child I
remember going to services there that were
strictly in Icelandic. When my sister’s first
child was baptised in the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church, my dad remarked that
he didn’t really enjoy the service since he
couldn’t understand a word of Ukrainian.
Mom smiled and said now maybe you
understand how non-Icelandic speaking
folk felt at the Icelandic service in the
Unitarian Church.
People from Argyle, Manitoba largely
settled the Kandhar-Dafoe district. Most of
these people had lived in the Argyle district
for a considerable length of time and left
only because they were attracted to the
open spaces of the new district. The town of
Dafoe on the western edge of the settlement
was incorporated in 1920 as a village and
there seems to have been little
Icelandic/Canadian presence in the village
except for a storekeeper named Bjorn
Bjornson who was in the hardware business
for some years. In 1910, two men from
Argyle, Torfi Steinson and Kristjan J.
Hjalmarson started a general store in the
hamlet of Kandahar. From that time on