The September 23, 2024 edition of Icelandic Roots' Samtal Hour examines the conditions the Icelandic emigrants faced when leaving Iceland for their new homes in the Americas.
Cathy Josephson, the Director of the East Iceland Emigration Centre in Vopnafjörður, Iceland, and Icelandic Roots Genealogy Team Director in Iceland, will discuss the arduous transportation options those early emigrants faced.
Today a trip from North America to Iceland can be arranged effortlessly over a smartphone and the worst challenge may be getting through overly long security lines. But the trip can be taken start-to-finish in less than half a day. Or overnight on a "red-eye" flight, where a fitful half-sleep is our biggest complaint.
Imagine making one of the first trips to North America such as the 1854 trip to Utah that first required a lengthy trip to Europe and then across the Atlantic to New Orleans, followed by a boat trip up the Mississippi River. The final leg of this journey involved a long walk across the prairies pulling a hand cart with all one's possessions. The journey was difficult physically, mentally, and emotionally and not everyone lived to see their new homes.
Or consider the group that traveled to Brazil in 1873. An offer of free passage attracted 500 applicants. However, only 35 secured passage. With no direct route from Iceland to Brazil, they had to cobble together passage first to Copenhagen, then board another ship to Germany, so they could engage a ship sailing to Brazil. Facing a winter on the Atlantic, they embarked on October 10, 1873, and arrived in Brazil on January 8, 1874. They made it in better time than Kristjan Gudmundsson, who sailed to Copenhagen in 1861 only to work there for two years to raise the funds to travel to Brazil in February 1873 adding another forty-four days at sea to his quest to reach his new home.
As Cathy Josephson explains in her video presentation "Sails, Rails, Rivers and Trails," (watch it here), Iceland was very isolated from the rest of the world in the mid-nineteenth century. With no regular outside contact, Icelandic citizens petitioned the Danish government to send one mailship per year. Josephson said this was a huge improvement over the previous intermittent service to Iceland. This development began to open up other options including the possibility to emigrate.
Over time the travel infrastructure grew. Ships from Scotland began arriving to purchase and transport sheep and horses from Iceland. This created another option for emigrants to get to Glasgow or Liverpool and book passage on the ships transporting the steady waves of European emigrants to North America. The Icelandic emigrants sold their horses and sheep to pay the fare, often riding the same ship to Scotland as their former livestock.
Once in North America, transport from the port to the emigrants' final destination was also transforming as rail and steamship access reached deeper into the continent. No matter how much transportation improved over time, there were still the inevitable barge rides, oxen cart rides, and long walks to remind the emigrants that they had traveled an incredible distance at a time when such travel was rare and filled with great challenges.
Cathy Josephson offers a deep exploration of what an emigrant faced in making this journey in her video webinar "Sails, Rails, Rivers and Trails." She suggests watching the video before attending Samtal Hour, where she and the participants can explore the topic in greater detail.
Icelandic Roots members will receive an email with the Samtal Hour link the day before the event.
Samtal Hour is a bi-weekly opportunity for Icelandic Roots members to get together online. They meet an interesting speaker presenting an Icelandic topic and then join in on the conversation.
Icelandic Roots has two membership options:
Samkoma Membership - $52 per year and anyone can join. Includes access to all Icelandic Roots member activities, seminars, newsletters, and book club but no database access.
Full Database Membership - $150 annual membership, $45 three-month membership. Includes all the Samkoma membership options plus full access to the Icelandic Roots database of over 825,000 individuals of Icelandic descent, 54,000 images and documents, many specialty search options, and a collection of out-of-print local histories. This option is available to Icelandic descendants.