The Icelandic Canadian - 01.04.2001, Page 42

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 56 #2
The year is 1874. One of their children, a son,
who remains in Iceland with foster parents,
becomes a progenitor of our narrator and
therefore, grist for some of the letters in the
shoebox.
Although the salient events of this drama
are accurate, facts and personalities are often
manipulated to ensure a compact and enter-
taining story-line. For example, after selling
their few belongings at auction and yet
remaining in debt, Olaf and Saeunn find their
way south to Reykjavik with their two
remaining children, allowable baggage and
the fiddle, where the ship Laura waits to take
them to Granton harbour in Edinburgh,
Scotland.
Accordingly, it is here they first set eyes
on grand buildings, large horses and a busy
urban life. They are then taken by train,
which was a new experience, across the coun-
try to Glasgow, in order to transfer to the
ocean steamer The Spirit of Canada for the
long journey across the Atlantic to Quebec
City, with 102 of them ending up on the edge
of the Precambrian Shield at Kinmount.
Several tragic deaths occur on board, includ-
ing one of Olaf s remaining children.
However, the truth is that this 1874 ship
load of emigrants embarked from two ports in
northern Iceland, on the Allan Lines steamer
SS St. Patrick, sailing directly to Canada
without a transfer in Scotland. As well, the
ship’s manifest confirms no deaths on board
and one birth. In short, a total of 352 desper-
ate souls arrived on this vessel in Quebec City
on September 23rd that year, taking their first
novel train ride from there to Toronto.
Most of the able-bodied men were hired
to clear the bush and blast rock in preparation
for a rail line at Kinmount.
Then again, after the settlement at
Kinmount failed in 1875, with the loss of
many lives, the St. Patrick Icelanders moved
to a new colony in the District of Keewatin
north of Winnipeg. After an arduous journey
across the Great Lakes, they joined a number
of Mennonites from Russia for the trip down
the Red River to Winnipeg.
The latter headed east of the Red River
for a "colony established by other
Mennonites, who had begun to settle there
five years earlier." In fact, this group of
German-speaking Anabaptists from Russia
arrived in Manitoba the year before!
Given such discrepancies, the reader
must keep in mind that Gudmundsson extracts
several discreet events or characters over a
period time, rearranging them in a highly
interesting series of credible scenes, much
like doing a painting. Periodically, Olaf plays
his fiddle, stitching together various joyous
and tragic high points in this epic movement
of people to the new world. We meet the lay
minister, John Taylor, aka "Moses," who was
instrumental in relocating this group of
Icelanders from Ontario to the west.
However, the narrator treats this sincere
and committed man with 'tongue in cheek'
comments, likely in response to various hard
spirited pastors in Iceland, such as Kolbein
"Suet-sucker" of Reykir.
Those who are familiar with the events
leading to the founding of "New Iceland" will
recognize some of the characters as they
march across the page. Where the bare bones
of history might dissuade a reader,
Gudmundsson infuses an eloquent style into a
semi-fictional treatise. Despite its historic
limitations, this is an entertaining and infor-
mative book, which is hard to put down.
This is a beautifully bound paper back,
with an excellent image of period farm
dwellings on the cover. The original, Hibflli
vindanna, published in Iceland by Hibyli vin-
danna Mai og Meaning (1995) received the
Icelandic Literary Award in 1996.
Bodvar Gudmundsson is a former
teacher, who has translated works by Berthold
Brecht, Roald Dahl and Cole Porter. He is
also an acclaimed poet, playwright and com-
poser of opera.
GIMLI
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