When the Icelandic immigrants came to Canada, they left a country where the soil was only suitable for grazing. Even that grazing land was only about one percent of the total land because the rest of the country was covered in mountains, lava deserts, lava fields and glaciers. To make matters worse, during many years, because of cold weather, the grass didn’t grow. That meant there was no food for sheep or dairy cows and with the die off of cattle, starvation was inevitable. The only alternative food was fish and in particularly cold years , the harbours filled with ice so that inshore fishing with open boats was not possible. There were no other sources of food.

Visitors to Iceland commented on the fact that farm land could be much improved with drainage. However, the return on drainage, given that it had to be dug by hand and because of the land ownership and rental system, was questionable.

There were attempts to grow grain but those failed. In 1772, Governor Thodal planted barley. It grew well but before it could be harvested, a storm destroyed the crop. Governor Finsen tried to grow oats but it was never warm enough for oats to ripen. In the Faroes, the farmers were able to grow and harvest oats.

At the end of the 1700s, the Danish government established model farms in Húnavatn. The farm managers tried to grow oats, barley, and rye. When walls were built to protect the grain from the cold wind, the grain nearly ripened. We think of Quinoe as a new discovery but in 1875 Burton mentions the possibility of it being grown in Iceland because it is grown in the Peruvian Andes at altitudes and temperatures where no other grain can grow.

Hr. Haldorsen introduced the potato to Iceland and by the time that Burton is writing Ultima Thule, the potato is grown all over Iceland. It is small but satisfactory, he says. Burton suggests that people grow turnips. Radishes are grown but are ‘hard, coarse, and woody.” Spinach is a success.

In the north-west the Stranda Sýsla has tried to grow various kales. Broccoli, turnip-cabbage, red cabbage, cauliflower. Lettuces are common; beets both red and yellow, carrots, onions, garlic, and shallots, chevril, black mustard, watercress, horse radish and parsley.

Ultima Thule was published in 1875 so Burton‘s comments are relevant to the experience of our immigrant ancestors. His observations are not that the growing of these various food plants was widespread but, rather, that they were experimented with. The attempted growing of food plants is reported by other travelers at earlier times but those experiments were usually associated with the bishoprics where there was the influence of clerics from Europe.

Therefore, when the Icelanders boarded ships to Ameríka, their wooden traveling chests were not filled with agricultural implements unless it was the short blade from a scythe. Their only crop was hay and their agricultural experience was limited to manuring a home field, cutting, raking and stacking the grass. They brought no seeds, nor garden implements, no ploughs. They came singularly unprepared for farming.

In New Iceland and as they moved Westward toward Brandon, then Argyle, further to Regina and Swift Current, they learned to evaluate land, but often the lessons were costly both in resources and in lives. Graveyards and family stories testify to that cost.
Many Icelanders began their journey westward from New Iceland shortly after they arrived in 1875. In the meantime, across the Rockies much had been happening during the 1800s.

On Vancouver Island, the Hudson Bay Company established a number of farms in Victoria as far as Colwood. Settlers were arriving and they wanted to have their own farms. One of the first independent farms was bought by a Captain Cooper in 1851. It’s interesting that as the land was cleared, it wasn’t just farmed but sheep and cattle were grazed. That meant when the Icelanders arrived, there was already a precedent and experience in grazing animals locally.

The first gold rush that brought American miners and others north was the Fraser Canyon gold rush of 1857. This rush was mostly over in three years but prospectors kept finding new gold areas. Most miners by necessity and by government decree entered the goldfields through Victoria. Business boomed. Then in 1896 to 1899 the Kondike goldrush began. A hundred thousand hopeful gold seekers headed north.
Cattle ranching developed to feed the early gold seekers but spread beyond that goal as ranchers sought markets for their cattle. In 1876, the year the large group of Icelanders arrived in New Iceland, Thaddeur Sarper started a cattle drive to Salt Lake City. His goal was to put his cattle into rail cars and ship them to Chicago. Instead, seeing an opportunity closer at hand, he shipped the cattle to San Francisco.

The ranchers also started fruit farming. Between 1864 and 1880 one rancher planted a huge orchard. In the meantime, on Salt Spring Island, apples had been growing since 1860. The first Salt Spring Island Fall Fair was held in 1896. By 1900 there were 80 official farms.

The immigrants had left an Iceland plagued by severe weather that brought many of them to the brink of starvation. Their journey had taken some of them to Nova Scotia where poor conditions drove them away. They traveled to Kinmount where tragedy beset them and the land was not suitable for grazing or growing grain. They traveled on to New Iceland to face a dreadful winter and disease. Westward, always westward, looking for good land, for opportunity. When those immigrants who made it to the Coast stepped off a train in Vancouver, after a long and arduous journey, they were greeted with flower gardens, fruit trees, vegetable gardens, wild berries in abundance. They were greeted with cornucopia.

When I was at the Saanich Fair this past weekend, I thought of those Icelanders who came to Vancouver Island in the late 1800s. I gazed at the abundance of vegetables, fruit, and flowers, and when I came across a display of local produce in a basket, I thought Cornucopia, they were greeted by Cornucopia. To me that basket of fresh produce symbolized this new world they had struggled so long and hard to reach. Of course, sadness, hardship, disappointment did not end. Those are all part of life. Tragedy can occur anywhere but for most, the West Coast provided opportunity.

Cornucopia! As I studied the basket on display with its blue ribbon, I thought of those immigrants as I stood there at the Saanich Fair.

(Material for this article from numerous sources including Burton, Ultima Thule. Lutz, Interlude or Industry? Ranching in British Columbia, 1859-1885, British Columbia Historical News, Summer 1980, Vol. 13, No. 4. Sivertz, The Sivertz Family, Book 2, Elinborg. Wickipdia.)

Will You Remember Them?




With each move the Icelandic immigrant community fragmented.














INL Convention Seattle: Day 1


After weeks of beautiful, sunny weather, it rained today just as the INL convention in Seattle was getting started with a bus tour. It turned out that it didn’t matter.

Jonas Thor was our tour guide and since he does tour guiding for a living, how could the job he did be anything but good. He lived in Winnipeg for ten years and since his return to Iceland he has bought thousands of people on Heritage tours. If you don’t think that is a big accomplishment, Iceland only has approximately 320,000 people. When you’ve brought thousands of people, you’ve brought a good percentage of the population.

His lecture, as we drove from Seattle to Blaine was chock a block with facts, as one would expect from a historian. However, he peppered his talk with humorous anecdotes from his years as a tour guide. People really do say the funniest things, especially when they’re trying to speak Icelandic. One woman knew some Icelandic but not all the latest words. When she was at a hotel, she called to the desk to say that she needed a wakeup call at seven. The Icelandic came out, though that she needed a man in her bed at seven.

Immigration to Washington State, Bellingham, Blaine, Seattle, was not like immigration to New Iceland. People didn’t come in groups. They came as families and as individuals. As usually happens, letters to friends and relatives encouraged others to follow.

Victoria drew a lot of settlers, but because of a depression and a smallpox outbreak, a number of people moved to Point Roberts. Because there was no group settlement, there was no attempt to create separate Icelandic communities on the West Coast – except for Osland on Smith Island in BC.

Jonas packed a tremendous summary of the history of the Icelandic settlers who came to the West Coast, everything from the early canneries that provided well paid employment to a history of how Point Roberts managed to capture the interest of a United States President.  President Roosevelt signed the document for the land at Point Roberts to be made available to the Icelandic settlers after they had been there for eighteen years.  In appreciation, they sent him a rug made from a sheepskin.


We stopped at the Unitarian Free Church where displays were set up for us. There was some excitement when people from Gimli saw a picture of Albert Kristjansson. Past and present connected since he was a brother of Hannes Kristjansson of Gimli. One of those special moments I’ve come to expect on these tours happened when Heather Ireland noticed that one of her grandfather’s  (G. Guttormson) poems was set to music in the hymnal and she sat down a played a few  bars.

We went to the Blaine cemetery where ten percent of the graves are of people of Icelandic background.

Lunch was served by The Icelandic Club of Blaine. Rob Olason gave a slide show about the Blaine Icelanders. The Bellingham Damekor serenaded us and Joan Thorstonson gave a talk on Point Roberts.


Food and music soothes the savage beasts.

Fed, kaffied, our heads aswirl with all we had heard, we raced away to the Nordic Heritage Museum. If I did nothing else on this trip except go to the NHM, the money and time spent would have been worthwhile.    The Exhibition The Dream of America, The Immigrant Experience, 1840-1920 is an exhibition in cooperation with the National Museum of Denmark and the Moesgard Museum, Arhus, Denmark. Comprehensive, detailed, beautifully constructed, it could easily occupy an entire day. It is the most complete description and illustration of the immigrant experience that I have seen.


Many Icelanders became involved in logging. This was completely foreign to them. In a very short time, they had to learn how to do dangerous jobs with dangerous equipment such as this saw and these axes on display at the museum.


Proving that rain, a long day, a lot of facts, an avalanche of conversation can’t keep a bunch of Icelanders down, there was a meet and greet in the evening. No one needed to know the address of the room. They just needed to follow their ears to the roar of the conversation.