Blaine

Icelanders

Web site of the Blaine Icelandic Heritage Society, an affiliate of the Icelandic National League of North America

 
 
 

Available March 2009:

The Tricking of Freya

A young woman obsessed with uncovering a family secret is drawn into the strange and magical history, language and landscape of Iceland

Freya Morris grows up in a typical American suburb – but every summer, she enters another realm entirely when she visits her relatives in Gimli, a tiny village in Canada settled by Icelandic immigrants. Here she falls under the spell of her troubled but charming aunt Birdie, who thrills her with stories of exotic Norse goddesses, moody Viking bards, and the life of her late grandfather, the most famous poet of “New Iceland.”

More on The Tricking of Freya

Christina Sunley, the author of The Tricking of Freya

 

Agust Breidford's Memoir: His Story

The Blaine Icelandic Heritage Society

Settlement History

Webcams in the Icelandic World

Links

Coffee Time

Website Contact
 

BIHS members posing for their 2008 pre-Thorrablot (Þorrablót)  photo.
 
 
    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.