The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.2000, Blaðsíða 40

Vol. 55 #4
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
338
The White Rock of Willow Island:
A Symbol of New Iceland
by John S. Matthiasson
October 21, 1875, was an auspicious date
in the history of people of Icelandic descent
on this continent, for it was the day on which
285 or so tired immigrants from Iceland came
north on Lake Winnipeg on flat-boats towed
by the steam boat Colville. According to leg-
end, one of the lake's infamous storms blew
up and, fearing for the safety of the Icelanders
and his own crew, the Colville captain
ordered the flat-boats to be cut free. They
were poled to the shore and landed at Willow
Point, a long, narrow piece of sandy marsh-
land which runs out into the lake.
Willow Point was not the anticipated
landing site for the immigrants, for they had
hoped to travel farther north to the Icelandic
River. They now had no choice, however,
other than to set up their tents where they had
landed. They had come a long way from their
ancestral home in Iceland, spending a difficult
year enroute in Kinmount, Ontario. Now they
wanted to settle down, even if it was on a site
short of their original destination. This was to
be their mecca - a place they would name
New Iceland - and on the land beside Willow
Point, which would later become known as
Willow Island, they would establish the com-
munity of Gimli.
When they looked for land, after being
cut adrift, legend tells us that they spotted a
large rock, and made their way toward it. This
was a large, unusually light-colored limestone
rock which would become perhaps a primary
symbol of the new society they were about to
create. It became known as the White Rock,
and it is said that the first tent was erected
right against it. On the evening of their
arrival, their number grew with the birth of
Jon Johannsson in that tent set in the protec-
tion of the huge stone.
In time, the immigrants did establish
Gimli and other towns throughout New
Iceland, which stretched for forty-some miles
along the western shore of the lake, but the
first years were ones of almost mind-numbing
hardship. They had left a volcano-ravaged
Iceland to seek a new life, but for many it
must have seemed even worse than that which
they had left behind. They persevered,
though, and eventually enjoyed the fruits of
their labour. During those early years, the
White Rock stood as a sentinel, but one which
was largely forgotten by the children of those
who had once used it as protection against a
fierce storm. Vandals - who it is claimed were
university students - defaced it as a prank, and
one local resident tried to demolish it in order
to make limestone which he could sell, but, as
if watched over by some Viking god, the rock
continued to stand tall as a beacon on the
landscape.
1975 marked the end of the first century
for New Iceland. Celebrations and festivities
were held in Gimli and elsewhere to honour
the event but strangely, the White Rock had
no place in them. Not, that is, until Connie
Magnusson, a community-spirited resident of
Gimli, decided to do something about that. On
October 21, Connie, her mother Sigga
Benedicktson and her aunt, Herdis Einarsson,
packed a picnic lunch and trekked from
downtown Gimli, along the shore of the lake,
to Willow Island. They enjoyed their picnic in
the shadow of the White Rock, and then
returned home by foot the way they had
come. All three women were descendants of
the original settlers, and wanted to commem-
orate in their own way the historic importance
of the rock beside which the first child in New
Iceland had been born, and near which the
immigrants spent their first nights.
The women continued their pilgrimage
every year on the 21 st of October, and in time,
others joined them. Thus was born the annual
"Walk to the Rock" - an event which has
become almost as important to the Icelandic
people of Gimli as the celebrated
Islendingadagurinn.