Icelandic immigration to Canada

In 1875 more than 200 Icelandic settlers arrived on the western shore of Lake Winnipeg at the urging of Sigtryggur Jónasson, who would later be known as “the father of Icelandic settlement in Canada.” The federal government created New Iceland, an ethnic reserve whose main village was Gimli. By the following year the small colony had about 1,300 Icelandic settlers. Other families settled in the Alberta district of the North-West Territories.

The concept of an Icelandic academy was formalized in 1911, through the efforts of Jón Bjarnason and other leaders in the Icelandic community, and the institution opened its doors in Winnipeg in 1913. It became a centre for Icelandic social and cultural organizations, and its library was widely used. The Icelandic National League of North America was established in 1919 to promote good citizenship among people of Icelandic descent, to work for the preservation of Icelandic language and literature in Canada and the United States, and to encourage goodwill and cooperation between the people of Iceland and the diaspora throughout North America.