Memories of Thorsteinn Borgford

By Brian Borgford

The following is a series of excerpts from the memoir of Thorsteinn Borgford (I464972), written in 1947 when he was in his 70s. His grandson, Brian, transcribed his typewritten manuscript. Thorsteinn tried to present his story in the third person, but his writing occasionally shifted into the first person. In addition, spelling and other errors that did not impact the meaning of his story remain unchanged. Brian has selected excerpts relevant to our theme of the Lake Winnipeg area of Manitoba.

Thorsteinn was born in 1874 in Iceland and died in Ottawa, Canada, in 1959.

August 1886: Arriving in Winnipeg

…after leaving the city of Quebec our next stop was Montreal, there was a stop of two days there as many of the passangers [sic] were leaving by different routes to the United States and the province of Ontario but the bulk of the passangers [sic] went to Winnipeg where they were received with great kindness, by their own countrymen and women who had emigrated to this country in earlier years and most of the newcomers were taken to the emigration building near Stanley Street, the majority stayed there for a week…

Description of Winnipeg on Arrival

…There was about 15,000 of a population in the city of Winnipeg. The streets were unpaved, except that the main street which was paved from the railway terminal to the corner of Portage and main. The paving consisted of round wood blocks about six inches long standing on end, the street was leveled, then a cushion of sand about three or four inches thick was paid on top of that the clay. Then one inch lumber was placed on the sand cushion, then above named blocks were laid on this foundation and sand was filled into the voids between the blocks. On Princess Street and on Market Street around the Market building back of the City Hall, twelve inch planks two inches thick laid on the sand cushion constituted the paving on the above named streets. Most of the other streets were mud roads and as to the country roads were mostly trails but it was a beautiful country to come to for all emmigrants [sic] and ill fed inhabitants of other lands. We are all thankful to our parents to have had the courage to come here from their homeland, they did not emigrate for their own welfare but for the good of their children and their descendants…

Winter 1887: Thorsteinn Talks about His Father Saemundur Borgford (I464974)

…The fishing crews on the lake at that time were English speaking Canadians, the majority from the province of Ontario, and fully half were Icelandic Canadians there always was a fine feeling between these two nationalities, Thor remembered the winter of 87, his father had built a log house west of Gimli and all their family had moved to their new home. Then his father went north to Grindstone Point, which was the fishing station for winter fishing. He took a sleigh and five dogs with him in November but they didn’t find out till New Years Day that he started out on the lake from Sandy Bar which is the north point of Broad Harbor, he was going straight over to Big Island but the ice was very thin and the sleigh the dogs were pulling was loaded with nets and supplies of all kinds for the winter fishing. When they were a short distance out from Sandy Bar, he lost the dogs and the sleigh through the ice, he was able to save himself. AND he walked all the rest of the way to Big Island, where he was able to get in with an outfit going to Grindstone Point, he was also able to send an order into Selkirk to replace the supplies he lost in the lake. Thor’s father was used to rough life and hard work, he did not think it was worth while to write a letter home and tell about the accident and worry the family at home…

1889: Saemundur builds a house 

…there was an eclipse of the sun which also makes the day more distinct in Thor’s memory. Thor and his older brother snared rabbits that winter which was the only meat the family had to eat that winter, while there was an abundance of rabbit meat Thor could never eat it but had fish instead. Thor’s father built the house on the homestead a mile and a half south west of Gimli, it was a fairly good house with dove-tailed corners, the logs were hewen [sic] and when it came to sawing the boards for the floors, the logs were lifted up onto the walls and reached from wall to wall across the house, one man would stand on top of the logs and handle the upper end of the saw an another man would stand on the floor below handling the lower end of the saw sawing the flooring, and under the flooring was handled in the same way with man power. The flooring was all tongue and groved [sic] by a hand plane, the joints between the logs in the walls were filled with lime mortor [sic] mixed with a small portion of manure, when that was dried the house was white-washed with home made lime wash, generally three coats of white-wash were used on both the inside and outside of the walls. The family were very comfortable in this house, lots of window light and the floors were all planed by hand, I think Thor lived in that house for two winters…

1888: Fishing on the Big Lake at the North End

…About three miles from the outlet of the Saskatchewan River there is an island called Selkirk, which now is a summer resort. At that time, there were all kinds of berries that grew on that island and sandy beaches on the shores which has delighted the tourists from Canada and the United States in the summer time, just north of that island the fishing grounds for white fish nets stretched from ten to fifteen miles in length and tremendous amount of fish was brought in to the docks at Grand Rapids every day. Every boat used to bring in sixteen hundred to two thousand fish per day, and very few fish were under four and a half pounds, the independent fishermen used to get two cents for each fish at the docks at Grand Rapids…

Editor’s Note: Members can find the full memoir as transcribed by Brian Borgford in the Icelandic Roots Database attached to Thorsteinn’s (I464972) profile. Brian's book can also be found on Amazon along with his other books.