Strange, the things we care about. Some people care about the fate of the timber wolf or the prairie gopher or the red legged wombat. Others care about historic events, are fixated on Napoleon and the battle of Waterloo. Others are passionate about Mediterranean frescoes. There
Tag Archives: new iceland
Immigration
When our Icelandic ancestors were faced with starving to death or risking their lives immigrating to North America, they had little idea of what they were getting into. An entire continent covered in endless forest. Just the size of North America was beyond comprehension. In place of valleys and mountains, there were days of traveling through dense forest. Winter, in Iceland, could be bitter, but not with the temperatures of the prairies.
The immigration agents came. There were brochures. There even may have been some letters from people who left early. But nothing prepared them for what was to come. The Canadian government was not soliciting immigrants for the benefit of the immigrants. They wanted immigrants to produce goods and order goods that would be transported on the railways. Politicians and businessmen wanted immigrants because they could make money on them.
There were no preparatory classes. No one said
A Revelation
West Coast Icelandic Children
Laughter: Jeg (I), the cat and the cream jug
Icelandic Humour 1893
Did your lang afi and amma laugh? Did they smile? Did they have a sense of humour? Have you heard the rumour that Icelanders have no sense of humour? If you have seen Nelson’s pictures of the first settlers, they look dour, serious, like serious, serious but I know that my lang amma had a sense of humour, knew how to laugh. She needed to. She had thirteen kids.
Here’s a series of pictures and texts from the Almanak of 1892. I’ll post two pictures today, then two more each day until the entire series is complete. Here’s what those lang lang ammas and afis were reading in 1892.
I’ll put my pathetic translation below. If some readers would help by translating the captions properly, it would be appreciated by everyone who reads my blog. What is great about blogs is that it is easy to make corrections.
Picture 1 The goose saw that the brennivin barrel had a leak. She had a good taste of it.
Picture 2 After she’d been drinking for awhile, she began to stagger and sing and became unusually cheerful.
Here is Vi
Book review: The Rockey Mountain Poet
1987: Iceland trip
Ketil and Sophia. He may have come to Canada with nothing but he became a dairyman, a farmer, a general merchant. He prospered.
In 1987 I made my first trip to Iceland. Like most events in my life, it was not planned. I went not knowing what to expect. When I returned I wrote an article for Books in Canada. Much has happened in Iceland over the last 25 years.
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From Field Notes
My trip to Iceland