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Blaine Icelanders Web site of the Blaine Icelandic Heritage Society, an affiliate of the Icelandic National League of North America |
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Agust Breidford's Memoir: His Story The Blaine Icelandic Heritage Society |
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| This site is an ongoing effort to document the Icelandic
settlement in Blaine, Washington. Icelandic immigrants came to Blaine
directly from Iceland or from other Icelandic settlements in North
America, primarily in the mid-western United States and Manitoba,
Canada. Settler's occupations ranged from farm day laborers, mill-workers, fisherman, to farmers, shop-keepers, writers and a photographer. Icelanders formed their own churches in Blaine, created choirs and joined in community orchestras. |
Icelandic writer, Margret Benedictson, who made her home in the Blaine area, documented the lives of several Icelandic settlers in the 1920s, thirties and forties for the Icelandic language publication "Almanak." Her writings have been translated into English and published under the title, Icelanders on the Pacific Coast. Elias Breidford, was Blaine's unofficial photographer for several decades, and his extensive photographic collection is now housed at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington, where it is being inventoried and catalogued. |
