The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.2005, Blaðsíða 14

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 59 #4
Icelanders have been in different kinds of
businesses in what was for some years a
thriving village.
By the turn of the century, the North
Dakota colonies of Icelanders had become
over populated. They heard about land in
Saskatchewan and a delegation investigated
in 1904. They selected the area south of
Little Quill and east of Bill Quill Lake,
which was slightly higher and not as open
as the land farther west and therefore better
suited for mixed farming. They stopped at
Yorkton and filed homesteads for them-
selves and by proxy for a number of friends
and relatives in North Dakota. This exodus
from North Dakota was in 1905 and 1906.
Special trains were engaged for this pur-
pose. In May 1905 the first train, consisting
of two coaches filled with people and thir-
ty-six box cars loaded with livestock and
other effects arrived in Wadena, the nearest
railway station at the time. The second train
arrived in 1906 at Quill Lake then these
people travelled south between the two
lakes. Settlers kept flocking in, and by 1907
most of the better land open for home-
steading had been taken up. The CPR
reached Wynyard in 1908. Because of its
strategic location, Wynyard attracted a
number of non-Icelandic businesses and
professional men. As a result, the Icelandic
element has always been in a minority, but
yet the Icelanders exercised their full share
of influence in the town and district.
One of the first men to arrive in Mozart
district was John S. Laxdal. He had home-
steaded in the Morden, Manitoba area and
bought a half section just west of Birch
Creek in 1903. This area became the Gardar
district and soon after the railroad was built
in 1908, merged with the larger Mozart dis-
trict. Mozart quickly became very commu-
nity minded and is known for that to this
day. It is the only community that I know
of that has held a 1st Day of Summer cele-
bration every year since 1912.
In 1903, five settlers arrived in the
Elfros district. In 1905 about 15 more fam-
ilies arrived and most of the rest of the set-
tlers came within the next two years. In
Elfros the two main groups were either
Scottish Presbyterians or Icelandic
Lutherans. Neither group could afford a
PHOTO BY ERIC OLAFSON
Amma’s House Bed & Breakfast.
church so they joined forces and built the
Union Church. It was consecrated at a
joint ceremony under the auspices of the
two synods. The two groups got along very
well. Eric Stephanson, a founder of
Vatnabyggd Club of the Icelandic National
League was a resident and mayor of Elfros.
In Elfros today there stands a statue depict-
ing our early Icelandic pioneers. The
Vatnabyggd Club commissioned this stat-
ue and Hans Holtkamp sculpted it.
From The Saskatchewan Icelander; A
Strand of the Canadian Fabric by Valdimar
Lindal, “Thus there was great variety in the
lakes settlement. In the east, around Foam
Lake, there was quiet assurance, based on
the wealth of experience in the district
itself. In the centre, people had gathered
from different areas, not in large numbers
from any one. Here progress has been
slower because of the brushwood and
sloughs; mixed farming with its toil had to
be chosen. Then there was the dash of the
west part of the settlement. In the
Wynyard district were men who felt that in
North Dakota they had greatly benefited
from contacts with people in a State that
was part of a large rapidly advancing coun-
try. Slightly farther west were young farm-
ers from Argyle, which for years had been
regarded as “the finest Icelandic agricultur-
al district.” They sought quick returns
from the expanse of the prairie soil and did
not hesitate to limit themselves to the pro-
duction of grain. These diverse elements of
the east and west of one Icelandic settle-
ment when blended, created an amalgam
with qualities far beyond what the individ-