My Festival Highlights: The Deuce and Íslendingadagurinn August 2025

by Beth Finnson

Beth, a volunteer with the Icelandic Roots genealogy team, had a busy travel schedule for the first weekend of August. Her adventures in two countries for two different festivals both celebrating our Icelandic culture and traditions are captured below. But there was more to the trip than just the festivals! After reading this account, more us of will be sure to add these festivals to our upcoming summer plans. Thanks, Beth!

Here are some of the highlights of my summer travels to The Deuce in North Dakota and Íslendingadagurinn, the Icelandic Festival of Manitoba...

Day 1: Friday

We started our trip to Mountain, ND for the Deuce celebration with lunch at the

Mountain Café. We, my partner Patrick and I, met Sunna Furstenau, Jason Doctor, Ingvar and Claudia Pétursson, and Curtis Olafson, the President of the Icelandic Communities Association, aka Sunna’s uncle. We then moved on to the Icelandic State Park and other historical sites.

Thorarinson family cemetery, Svold, Pembina, ND. Images provided by B. Finnson.

Ingvar also had a family request that we locate the grave site of his 2nd great-grandfather, Þórarinn Árnason (I402533), and his wife, Gróa Jónsdóttir (I83559).

Well, this was not an easy task. It involved several phone calls to local experts, pouring over plot maps, driving on back roads, bumping along a dirt driveway, driving through fields along a fence line to locate a specific field and the site of the former homestead. We finally located it after Sunna made contact with the person who harvests the farmer’s crop and had seen the headstone! It was in the corner of a field in the Thorarinson Family Cemetery. It was only accessible by trekking through the hay field.

We finished off Friday night by going to the VFW fundraiser in Mountain for a fried

walleye fish dinner with all the trimmings and dessert.

Day 2: Saturday

Saturday early morning we headed back into Mountain to prepare for the Friday Forum and lunch sponsored by Icelandic Roots at the Mountain Community Center. First, we admired the line-up of all the parade entries. There is nothing more fun than a small-town parade, especially one led by a Viking Ship.

Parade Viking Ship in Mountain. Image provided by B. Finnson.

The Friday Forum featured “The Icelandic Emigration Journey” by Sunna, then Claudia

Pétursson presented “Weaving History with Njal’s Saga Tapestry”. The tapestry itself

was on display and was fabulous! Jason Doctor followed with “Bloodlines & Ballads:

Finding Ourselves in Icelandic Sagas”. Additionally, we were entertained by Aaron Kennedy from the University of North Dakota and a Fullbright Scholar as he discussed his weather sojourn in Iceland and the comparison of wild weather in North Dakota and

Iceland.

Cousins Beth and Guðfinna learned about each other for the first time using the IR database at the Friday Forum. Image provided by B. Finnson.

The Friday Forum was followed by a free genealogy center and free access to the Icelandic Roots Database. Volunteer genealogists from Icelandic Roots, including Beth, Jody and Sunna searched the database for answers from the participants. The most common question from the visiting Icelanders was “do I have cousins in the U.S?”

Here is my new cousin!

Sunna exploring the IR database with the Icelandic Ambassador to the US. Image provided by B. Finnson.

Sunna was also able to sit down with Her Excellency Svanhildur Hólm Valsdóttir, the Icelandic Ambassador to the U.S., to explore her family history.

We finished the day by enjoying a concert performed by the Iceland Combined Men’s Choirs Karlakór Hreppamanna and Sprettskórinn. This was held on the Borg Lawn. It was outstanding.

Saturday night dinner was a treat! We ate at the Barley Bin Bar & Grill, owned by

Jolene Halldorson in Osnabrock. We had the best steak ever! It was huge with

homemade mashed potatoes and Jolene’s freshly baked rolls, plus ice cream for

dessert.

Day 3: Sunday

Up early and driving north, we crossed into Canada, passing through Winnipeg to Gimli. It’s beautiful scenery, but coming from a girl who grew up in NW Washington this is really flat country! The prairies are beautiful, and the landscape never ends. You can see for miles, not a mountain to be seen. The sunflower fields were stunning. Lake Winnipeg is gorgeous and so huge, and it looks like an ocean.

We arrived at the New Iceland Heritage Museum in Gimli to a standing-room-only audience. Jason and Claudia repeated their presentations from the day before at the Deuce. IR volunteer genealogist, Greg McNeil, demonstrated the IR database and explained many of the features. Attendees were given free access to the database for the afternoon with several genealogists who volunteered to assist them. Ingvar and Claudia set up Njál’s Saga tapestry in the Heritage Pavilion.

Day 4: Monday

We were not able to see or participate in much of the Íslendingadagurinn at Heritage Pavilion or Viking Village as Sunna took us on a personalized tour to Riverton and Hecla Island. There is always next year!

We were joined on our tour by Elín Guðmundardóttir and her husband Jón Malmquist Guðmundsson, the parents of 2019 Snorri West participant Dagrún Malmquist Jónsdóttir. It turns out that Elín is my 3rd cousin!

Coffee with folks in the Engimýri kitchen at Riverton, MB. Image provided by B. Finnson.

Driving north in Manitoba was so beautiful. Sunna had arranged for us to meet Nelson Gerrard and visit some of the Icelandic River Heritage Sites. We toured the historic house at Engimýri (Meadow Mire), now one of the oldest surviving residences in the Icelandic River area. It was built in 1900 and has been restored beautifully. We even had coffee and cookies around the kitchen table, also joined by Richard Ingimundson, another IR volunteer.

Nes Cemetery. Image provided by B. Finnson.

Next door was the historic Fagriskógur house, acquired by Icelandic River Heritage Sites in late 2017 and still a work in progress.

The Nes Cemetery completed our heritage site tour, the first community cemetery in the area, established in 1876 to bury the victims of the smallpox epidemic.

From the Icelandic River, we drove north again to Hecla Island, long on my bucket list! Hecla Island was named after the Icelandic volcano Mount Hekla.

On Hecla Island overlooking Lake Winnipeg. Image provided by B. Finnson.

Here we are on the pier with Lake Winnipeg in the background. Icelandic immigrants opened homesteads on Hecla Island beginning in 1876. Isolated for many years, they built a self-sufficient community based mainly on fishing, but including farming, lumbering, lake transport, trapping, and quarrying. Now it is a provincial park.

We drove around the island, admiring the old homesteads, cabins, and school, and walked through the cemetery. The island was beautiful on this August summer day, but

I would not want to live there in the winter!

This was a long day, and we were all glad to have a quick supper and go back to our

woodland cabin for the night. Sunna was a fabulous tour guide.

Day 5: Tuesday

Icelandic River Roast Coffee label. Image from Icelandic River Heritage Sites.

We all loaded up our cars and headed south, back to the U.S. This was a fabulous trip and definitely an immersion course in all things Icelandic, with the Icelandic immigrant history in North Dakota as well as Manitoba.

The Mountain area is special to me. Both my maternal and paternal great-grandparents were Icelandic immigrants who first arrived in Winnipeg and eventually went south to the Mountain area for a few years. Both couples had children and married there; one in Gardar and one in Hallson. Eventually, they all settled in Blaine, WA.

I try to imagine their lives in Winnipeg and North Dakota, adjusting to everything new. I hope it was better than they expected. I am thankful that they risked so much to leave Iceland.

We are home now, sipping our souvenir Icelandic River Roast coffee and planning our next trips to Iceland, the Deuce, and Íslendingadagurinn.