Canada’s Leading Poet: Stephan G. Stephansson (1853–1927)

CANADA'S LEADING POET STEPHAN G. STEPI-IANSSON (1853-1927) VVATSON KIRKCONNELL C ANADA is lacking in those literary shrines which an older _civilization scatters so lavishly across its countryside. · Ayr, Ecclefechan and Abbotsford, Grasmere, Stratford, Stoke Poges, and unntunbered other Old-World villages and towns, are honoured for their ghosts of literary association, ap intangible accumulation of the fruitful centuries. V\lhen, in an era yet to come, a similar place-worship arises in Canada, a strong claim to recognition will be made by the little Albertan ha1nlet of Markerville, near which, for almost forty years, lived Stephan G. Stephansson, one of the greatest of all Icelandic poets, and, as an adopted Canadian, an author with an eminent place in our own literary annals. Stephan Gudmundsson Stephansson was born on October 3, I 853, on a small farm named Kirkjubol, in the parish of Skagafjordur, on the north coast. of Iceland.. On the side of his father, Gudmundur Stephansson, he was related to the provost of the diocese of Holar, while through his mother, Gudbjorg Hannesdottir, he was cousin to the famous poet Benedikt Grondal. He was educated in one of the elementary schools of the island, but did not proceed to a grammar school. In 1873, as a lad of twenty, he emigrated to the United States, :first working as a farm-hand near Milwaukee, and later pioneering on his own account in Shawano County, Wisconsin, and, after I88o, in Pembina County, North Dakota. During his Wisconsin period he married an Icelandic bride, Helga Jonsdottir, by whom he had three sons and three daughters. Finally, in I 889, he rem·oved, 263 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY with some other Dakotan settlers, to a new pioneering enterprise in Alberta, about eighty miles north of Calgary. At first there was no post-office within seventy miles, but the con1pletion, in I 892., of the Calgary-Edmonton branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway gave them a n1arket-centre at Innisfail, twelve miles distant. Still later, the little village of Markerville, with two stores, a crea1nery, a town-hall, and a few cottages, grew up about three miles from Stephansson's log-cabin homestead . In abrief poem, "My New Neighbourhood," he describes the region thus:* Where the Red Deer River runs From ~he Rockies towards the dawn, Through 1\lberta's bellying hills, Basin'd strath and grassy lawn, Here the herdsmen have their home, Haunt the hollows and the spurs; Some drive shambling sheep; some, bullsShameless , green-eyed murmurers. Hell's retired henchmen here, Heaven's lost servants, sullen, slow, Lag like Greeks by Lethe stream, Letting all commandments go. With this district he identified himself for the rest of his life. He came to it a man of thirty-six, in the prime of his strength, with a family of little ones about his knees. Here, too, he died on August ro, I 927, a white-haired veteran of seventy-four, with a rich life-record behind him. He was one of the first organizers of the Markerville school-district; he took an active part in every constructive community enterprise; and he contributed *This aod all other quotations in the article are my own English renderings from the original Icelandic. All names of poems and ·books have been turned · from Icelandic into English, in order to accommodate the general reader. 264 STEPHAN G. STEPHANSSON generously out of his poverty in aid of every good cause. He considered himself categorically a Canadian, but in his heart he linked up that allegiance with an unfailing affection for the far-off island of his birth. As to appearance, he was :five feet seven inches in height, slender in build but very rugged and wiry. His eyes were a deep Nordic blue, very lustrous and very piercing, but the black hair of his earlier years indicated that blending of Celtic blood with the Scandinavian· which tends to differ.entiate the typical Icel~nder from his Norwegian cousin. Stephansson wore a heavy moustache but no beard; his countenance was lean and lined; and wrinkles of good nature lurked at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Since his claims to greatness rest upon his...