The Icelandic Canadian - 01.08.2002, Qupperneq 37

Vol. 57 #1
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
35
description of his farm from 1870, in his
native district in Iceland, Kelduhverfi in
Thingeyjarsysla. “The womenfolk helped
separate the lambs and ewes at penning
time, a three-week period during which the
two were kept apart at night, and weaning
was usually finalized in the ninth week of
summer. After weaning, the women were
kept busy with dairy related chores, hay-
ing, and managing the household.”
Canadian politician Magnus Eliason,
whose parents emigrated from Iceland in
1900, admits that his father was a poet and
not a farmer, and if it hadn’t been for his
mother the family would have never sur-
vived. As he states, “I doubt the livestock
would have survived without my mother.
She kept organized, resting about half an
hour each day after lunch, but otherwise
hard about her tasks.” Eliason adds that
although his father was a hard worker, his
mother was the “livestock person”; having
worked as a hired maid on a farm back in
Iceland. This account seems quite typical as
similar recollections are told by Economics
Professor Leo Kristjanson, and author
Laura Goodman Salverson. Kristjanson’s
father ran a store, and as he notes, “didn’t
know how to milk a cow.” Laura
Goodman Salverson, whose parents immi-
grated in the early 1880s, recalls, “With
determination and tireless energy she
(Laura’s mother) kept the little establish-
ment off the rocks, working from dawn till
dark, whatever the state of her health, her
only vacations those enforced rest periods
when another blessed event called a halt to
the never ending work at hand. Father,
meanwhile, continued flirting with fate
(trying to get a job).” An extraordinary
case of a woman’s workload is recounted
by Wilhelm Kristjanson; who had heard
this story from one of the woman’s ten
children. “Mother washed the wool, card-
ed, spun and knitted it into mitts, socks and
underwear for the whole family. For some
years she made all our shoes from sheep-
skin. She made butter from the milk of ten
to fifteen cows. When the men were away
she often milked all the cows. My mother
might make fifteen hundred pounds of but-
ter in a whole summer.”
Besides the pertinence of their house-
hold chores and acting financier of the fam-
ily budget, women provided a crucial addi-
tion to the family income by leaving the
family to find work, or selling or bartering
homemade goods. In the 1870s, winter
employment was scarce. Many women had
to travel in search of employment, includ-
ing a party of six who walked from New
Iceland to Winnipeg on the frozen lake and
river. “These six rented a single, unheated
room and slept on the floor, with the result
that the health of one of the group was per-
manently affected.” Icelandic women
proved to have greater success than men at
finding work, due to the surplus of skilled
labourers and the demand of domestic ser-
vants in Winnipeg and farms around
Manitoba. Their salaries ranged from $8.00
with English skills, to $6.00 without. If no
jobs could be found locally, women would
walk to Winnipeg to find work at scrub-
bing floors or washing dishes. This was
seen as a necessary act to ensure the fami-
lies survival, and was deemed better than
borrowing money.
In an excerpt of the minutes from one
of the colony’s council meetings, the
Reverend Pall Thorlaksson had suggested
that “women should make the trip up into
Manitoba on foot.” Magnus Eliason
recounts the story of his mother, Margret
Sveinsdottir who, after being widowed,
came to New Iceland in 1900. Upon arrival
she left her children with her brother, and
went to work in Winnipeg with an English
family to earn wages and improve her lan-
guage skills. While most women were sin-
gle, some were married and would have to
leave home to help with the family income.
They would return in spring and summer,
when the men could usually find work on
farms.
The women also added to the family
income by selling their knitting. Although
there was no spare time set aside to knit,
many did so while combining several activ-
ities that all members of the household
could engage in. Each night, the women sat
and knitted socks and mitts that would be
bartered while the husband read to the
family. This combined ‘extra’ time for
work with what little time a woman had
with her children. As Goodman Salverson