The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.2008, Qupperneq 39

Vol. 61 #4
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
177
would also contribute to the
Europeanization of Icelandic fashion so
that by the turn of the century pictures of
groups of Icelandic women show a number
of them in “Danish fashion.”
The Icelanders who came to Canada
and the United States beginning in the
1870’s would, especially the men, be unex-
ceptional in appearance. In fact, when the
first group arrived in Winnipeg by boat in
1875, many Winnipeggers refused to
believe they were Icelanders. They expect-
ed to see something much more exotic and
more like Eskimos.
It does seem however that at least some
of the Icelandic women wore their every
day dress, the upphlutur, when they first
arrived. One author describes the reaction
to her mother’s dress shortly after her
arrival in the United States in 1851 as “Her
Icelandic costume of black wool, with the
tight fitting skillfully embroidered bodice
and multicoloured apron was greatly
admired, but the small tasselled cap under
which she turned up her heavy braids did
not find favour. In fact she was advised to
keep the costume but send the cap back to
Iceland.”
The first five years in Canada were dif-
ficult ones. The first group arriving in
Winnipeg in the early fall of 1875 after an
already long journey, were faced with a sit-
uation in which no preparations had been
made for them. By the time transportation
by barge was arranged for the rest of the
journey down the Red River and up Lake
Winnipeg to New Iceland they were only
able to throw together a few rough shelters
before winter came. Food supplies were
minimal and even fishing was not long
available to them as they were not familiar
with ice fishing. Some work for more
established settlers was available, especially
to the women who could get domestic
work and this brought much needed
money for supplies. The second year they
were faced with a much larger influx of set-
tlers but conditions might have been better
except that the settlement was ravaged by
small pox during the winter. The authori-
ties in Winnipeg far from providing ade-
quate help, supplies and medicine, placed
the whole settlement under quarantine.
This not only prevented the Icelanders
from bringing in extra money by working
outside the settlement but because the
quarantine was not lifted until July, sup-
plies needed to put in crops could not be
purchased. So for the third year in a row
the Icelanders faced a bleak winter. When
one considers that the second group arrived
in Winnipeg with an average of seven dol-
lars per person it is easy to visualize the
hardships they had to endure.
In spite of this slow start a photograph
of the Icelandic Women’s Society taken in
Winnipeg in 1885 shows all of the women
in very fashionable dress. This was only ten
years after the arrival of the first settlers.
Even if the Icelanders had not had a
long standing interest in fashionable cloth-
ing, certain changes in clothing were
inevitable. The most obvious cause was cli-
mate. The climate of Iceland is tempered by
the Gulf Stream and so the Icelanders were
not used to such extremes as Manitoba
endures in the course of a year. Winters
were colder and summers much hotter.
One of the first purchases was often a low
priced buffalo robe or coat often offered
for sale in the frontier stores. “The recent
war that the West had waged on the buf-
faloes of the prairies made their hides so
plentiful that they flooded the market.” No
doubt the summer heat had the effect of
reducing the amount of clothing that was
made of wool. For instance suits for boys
were soon being made of “strigafot” a cot-
ton in various weights similar to denim.
Another cause was the relative avail-
ability of other clothing and textiles. Even
the Icelandic men seemed interested in the
clothing available when they landed in the
New World. The price and quality of the
wearing apparel was the subject matter of a
number of letters the four men who had
landed in the United States in 1870 sent
back to Iceland. In the eyes of the
Icelanders coming from a small isolated
island just emerging from centuries of con-
trolled and restricted trade, the variety
available even in Winnipeg must have been
exciting. Even for everyday clothes dry
goods were purchased by the yard and
although the Icelanders soon acquired
sheep and the Icelandic housewife