My Amma and Me
Description
Contains Photos
$12.95
ISBN 0-920486-72-X
DDC 971.272'092
Author
Publisher
Year
Contributor
Nora D.S. Robins is the co-ordinator of Internal Collections, University
of Calgary Libraries.
Review
Manitoba boasts the largest Icelandic settlement outside of Iceland.
Beginning in the late 1880s, the Canadian government encouraged
Icelanders to move to the Canadian West. To attract settlers to the
prairies, the government offered immigrants the opportunity to earn
title to 160 acres of land if they fulfilled the homestead requirements:
and a $10 fee and the promise to clear cultivate the land, and to live
on it for three years. Two Icelanders who took up the challenge were
Kristen and Hjortur Palsson.
In 1901, Kristen Thorsteinsdottir decided to marry Hjortur Palsson,
despite her parents’ opposition. Kristen and Hjortur arrived in
Winnipeg, where they married and spent the next three years. In 1904,
the young couple, together with their two children, packed their
belongings onto an ox cart and moved to a homestead four miles east of
the Icelandic community of Lundar, Manitoba. Life was hard, but no
harder than in Iceland. Over the next 20 years, Kristin and Hjortur
cleared the land, built a home, and raised 11 children, one of whom was
the author’s mother.
Evelyn Thorvaldson tells the story of her grandmother—her
“Amma”—with love and pride. My Amma and Me will have special
appeal for those with an interest in homesteading and family history.