Leirarskotta

by Doreen Borgford McFarlane

This is an excerpt from a yet unpublished book Leirarskotta by Doreen Borgfjord McFarlane.

Author's Note: This book that I wrote tells the story of an Icelandic girl ghost who, according to Icelandic records, lived and followed the Borgfjord family for no less than eight generations. I learned about her quite accidentally around 2015 by reading a lecture on "Icelandic Immigrant Ghosts" that was delivered at the University of Victoria, B.C. in 2003. The lecture explained that this ghost had immigrated to Canada in 1886 with my great-grandparents, and then lived with my Amma, Gudrun Eggerstdottir Borgfjord in Arborg, Manitoba. Learning this, I took on the task of writing her “memoirs.” The article below, is an excerpt in which Leirarskotta goes out to meet with local Indigenous ghosts who live at Ness near Riverton. —DBMcF     

Indian Pipes aka Ghost Plants (Manitoba Habitat Conservancy) Photo Credit: Avi Dolgin; flickr

This may be the place for me to tell you, as I had mentioned earlier, about the other native ghosts I encountered in the new land of Canada. I am sure the indigenous people had many ghosts that lived with and around them. One hears tales of such matters as ghostly encounters and also of ghosts who are closely related to native Canadian religions.

It occurred to me, after being in Canada for quite some time, that the place I might have a chance to meet up with area ghosts would be in or near a cemetery, as I have been told that Indigenous ghosts accompany the dead. I admit that I was unreasonably curious about these indigenous ghosts. Might they be anything like me? Did they live for generations as many of us did? Were they friendly, nasty, or disinterested? Did they emerge through necromancy as had I? Yes, I decided that I would go and visit a place where they might be found.

I am not sure what kind of result I’d been hoping for. Maybe I was lonely but that is not common for Icelandic ghosts. Or, I could have been looking for a ghost community with which to connect myself. I am not sure why, if that were the case. At any rate, let me tell you this. I got more than I bargained for!

The family was taking a trip that summer to visit friends at a place known as Nes, along the banks of the Icelandic River. I really had to go along with them anyway, as I could not let them travel alone when my job was to always go out ahead of my families in their travels to protect them from danger.

Now, back in 1875, a large group of Icelanders had settled there, in the Riverton area, and the worst thing imaginable had happened to them. Both the settlers and also their neighbors, the Sandy Bar Aboriginal Band, were suddenly overcome by a devastating smallpox epidemic. Some unknowing immigrant Icelander, it appears, had carried the smallpox from his enroute temporary housing location back in Quebec, just before arriving in this new settlement. Many of the Icelanders had been vaccinated but the aboriginals had not.

Nearly the entire Native band was decimated, and countless Icelanders as well. The deceased natives had been buried at Sandy Bar and also many at Nes, where the Icelanders then lived. In addition, the Icelanders had also buried their own on nearby family farms. Apparently, in addition, Nes had already been a native burial ground for several years before the epidemic and long before the arrival of the Icelanders.

It seems a man named Magnus Hallgrimsson had attempted recently to settle on the property at Nes. This Magnus had coldly and unthinkingly pulled out the burial markings, actually leveling the graves, and had proceeded to build his house right in the middle of it all. He had also, insensitively, even called his homestead Graftarnes or Grave-Ness. But such a home was not to be!

As it turns out, Hallgrimsson died a horrible death at which time his wife wisely refused, under any circumstances, to stay there. She promptly packed all her earthly goods and headed to Winnipeg without a backward glance. By the time I showed up in that area, and decided to have my ghostly look around, far too much water had gone under the bridge, so to speak. Nes had already become notorious for night movements and strange ghostly goings-on. Even the famous poet Guttormur Guttormsson who lived in Vidivellir, right next door to Nes, was remembered as having refused to ever go near the place at night. 

Because my Borgfjord family was going to visit relatives from Iceland who had settled in Riverton, near Nes, I made the ghostly decision that I would make my way to Nes late in the evening, and just have a look around. I was not sure what I might find there; native ghosts or Icelandic ghosts or no ghosts at all! I was not afraid because, after all, I myself am one of them. So I did not expect they would want to harm me.

I slipped away from the family and made my way to Nes, a couple of hours after dinnertime on that hot muggy summer evening. And, what I saw there remains with me still. It was a sight I shall never forget. Our Icelandic ghosts do not look much like their host family members, probably because we move on from generation to generation. But the native ghosts, much like the one I had seen with the chief who had come to the house, practically looked, it seemed to me, identical to each one of the people whose ghost they were; those who had died there in the smallpox epidemic. This meant that the ghosts looked as if they themselves had smallpox!

Their ghostly bodies seemed as if covered with red blistered pox. These ghosts were more or less hanging out and hanging on together in the cemetery there, and certainly not at all with any sense of joy. The entire band of them appeared to me to be filled with a deep burning sorrow, each for his or her own native individual who had died and who was buried there.

These ghosts did not seem to see me at all, as they appeared to be seriously engaged in moaning and grieving together, sorrowing loudly over the loss of so many lives, both young and old, male and female. Then, suddenly, I realized that together, they sensed my presence. Although they did not want to hurt me, they also did not offer me any kind of welcome or even recognition.

I felt like some kind of foreign voyeur who simply did not belong there with them. I realized quickly that this was not a place where I ought to be or needed to be. I sensed that their ghostly faithfulness was each toward an individual who had died those years back in the epidemic, or in some cases earlier in various native wars. To say the least, they were profoundly melancholy. They moved around, swaying together and emitting a strange kind of steady repetitive music that was accompanied by what sounded like beating drums.

I recognized almost immediately that I was out of my territory - and out of my league! I was to find no ghostly companionship in Nes; in this profoundly bitter and sorrow filled place. I turned from them and practically flew back to my own Icelandic (and now Icelandic Canadian) family. My family had for generations suffered setbacks but had experienced nothing like this kind of deep sorrow suffered by the people of Nes. My family, in fact, had also lived out a good deal of joy and even laughter. My family, after all its generations of troubles, was still abounding with life and, even more importantly, with hope. And, yes, even faith.

Maybe there were worse things than being an Icelandic girl ghost after all!  Maybe I had a lot for which to be thankful. That visit to Nes had given me a lot to think about.