<
 
 
 
 
×
>
hide You are viewing an archived web page collected at the request of University of Alberta using Archive-It. This page was captured on 18:48:59 Dec 08, 2010, and is part of the HCF Alberta Online Encyclopedia collection. The information on this web page may be out of date. See All versions of this archived page. Loading media information

Heritage Community Foundation Presents
Alberta Online Encyclopedia

Top Left Corner

Top Right Corner

Top Right Corner
Home Top English | Français Sitemap Search Partners Help
Home Bottom
  • Home
  • Land of Opportunity
  • Settlement
  • Rural Life
  • Links
  • Resources
  • Contact Us!
  • Heritage Community Foundation
  • Heritage Community Foundation Logo

Le Heritage Trails sont présentés de courtoisie CKUA Radio Network et Cheryl Croucher

CKUA Radio Network logo

Visit Alberta Source!

Government of Alberta

Government of Canada

 

Ce texte a été publié en anglais et n'est pas disponible en français.

Stephansson House, Part Four

Listen to this Heritage Trail

Stephan Gudmundsson Stephansson is sometimes called the Shakespeare of Iceland.

Yet the poetry for which this man is revered was written during the four decades that he homesteaded at Markerville, in Alberta.

As historian Lisa Mort-Putland explains, his early work often focused on nature and the landscapes of Alberta.

His poetry is written in verse. He wrote eight volumes of poetry in his lifetime. And like I said, he was an insomniac - he usually wrote at night. And in Icelandic, the poems are said to be very, very beautiful. They have a great metre and rhythm to them, and they do lose a lot in translation.

But I think that the poetry, even in English, is very, very beautiful. And people have a great sense of the spirit in the writing:

From its source in the rugged Rockies

The Red Deer River flows,

'Twixt hollows, hills and valleys

Oe'r Alberta's eastern slopes.

Stephansson was both vocal and articulate, and not afraid to speak up on many topics.

As he became more famous, he was also called away to Iceland and to Winnipeg and to other settlements to talk and to read his poetry and his thoughts. Because he was quite a wise man, while uneducated in the traditional way, he had great feelings about Iceland and about the Church, about settlement, and about Canada as a nation. So he was quite a well-known speaker, and he would leave the farm, sometimes for weeks at a time, leaving his poor wife Helga to run the business of farming, which must have been quite the struggle for her.

But Helga was not forgotten by the Icelandic people who loved her husband's poetry.

Stephansson was invited to Iceland for a poetry reading, where he was supposed to stay just a few short weeks, and ended up staying the majority of the summer. And the Icelandic people recognized his fame and his talent much earlier on than the Canadians, and in honour of him staying in Iceland so long, they sent a beautiful Icelandic costume to Helga, his wife, which was actually made with real gold thread and buttons and assorted jewelry, which was more than Helga had ever seen before, and was certainly not something that she would wear around the farmstead.

The farmer-poet Stephan G. Stephansson died in his farmhouse at Markerville in August of 1927.

On the Heritage Trail,

I'm Cheryl Croucher.

Close this window

Albertasource.ca | Contact Us | Partnerships
            For more on the history of settlement in Alberta, visit Peel’s Prairie Provinces.