The Icelandic Canadian - 01.08.2001, Blaðsíða 16

98
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 56 #3
nating. Even with these hardships,
Benediktsson states that Jon probably lived
better under these circumstances than many
others. It is interesting to know that he
farmed in Geysir, then went back to Ekra
and also owned a farm named, Flugustadir
before moving to Vidir.
Benediktsson mentions that around 1900,
farmers from North Dakota began settling
the area along the Icelandic River naming it
Ardalsbyggd. He then writes an historical
account of the settlement of Vidir, an area
northwest of Ardal (Arborg) which was set-
tled by farmers from communities in New
Iceland, this information is corroborated by
Wilhelm Kristjanson, in The Icelandic
People of Manitoba as he explains that Ardal
was settled by an influx of people from
North Dakota. He writes, “Nearly seventy
people from the Icelandic settlements in
North Dakota arrived in Manitoba in 1901
and the majority of these went to the new
settlements on the Icelandic River and there
were more to come.” He explains that
Ardal, Framnes and Geysir were the com-
munities formed and later the region became
known as the Arborg district. Kristjanson’s
observation that, “In the same decade settle-
ment extended north to Vidir and Sylvan. A
fair proportion of these later settlers were of
the second generation in New Iceland.”
According to Benediktsson, Jon
Sigurdsson was one of the first to survey and
look for land in the area that later became
Vidir. He writes that this area was unfamil-
iar, that Jon surveyed a large area and that
four men followed Jon into that wilder-
ness. Benediktsson provides an important
historical account of the this new settle-
ment. He described the land as, unfamiliar
to both Icelanders and people of other
nationalities and that it was low lying with
poor drainage and that no roads had been
built. However, there was plenty of wood
for fence posts and firewood and there
were many animals such as deer, moose,
elk, black bear, wolves, fox and smaller ani-
mals. Jon liked the land especially for cattle
as it had good pasture. It may be noted here
that this land has proved to be among the
best land in Manitoba and Vidir is now a
prosperous farming community.
Some of the settlers from New Iceland
began moving to this new area as early as
1902, however, Jon did not move his fami-
ly there until 1905. Beyond the Marsh men-
tions pioneers such as Sigurdur Eyolfson
who took a homestead in 1902, the
Sigvaldason brothers who came in 1903,
Larus Solvason who took a homestead in
Vidir in 1902, Armann Magnusson, who
homesteaded in Vidir in 1904, the
Pjetursson and Finnsson families who
came to Vidir in 1904.
The fact that Jon brought 30 animals
with him and built a timber house and a
barn from logs was interesting in that only
fifteen years before, his father had sold all
th cattle in order to pay for his trip back to
Iceland. The discussion about the need for
leadership to deal with the problem of
floods, to facilitate the building of drainage
Jon and Sigrun’s son, Baldwin, returns from Arborg with the mail.