Meeting people in Killarney and Ninette, Manitoba

Korenna Thora Thorunson looking through family papers

The last couple of days I have stayed in Killarney. I met with  Carol Chapman and her aunt Korenna, who are descendants from Icelandic settlers in the Argyle district in Manitoba, the Christophersons and the Isbergs who settled near the town of Baldur in the early 1880s. They have been very helpful and have showed me writings and photographs from the early 20th century relating to their family and the early days of settlement. One of their photographs is of  the Icelandic private Kristjan G. Skardal who served in the 16th Canadian Scottish Regiment and proudly wears a kilt in his portrait.

Pte Kristjan G. Skardal. 16th Canadian Scottish

Today, myself and Carol visited Donald and Angus MacDonald in Ninette. The MacDonald brothers are the grandchildren of Angus and Isabella (nee Stewart) who emigrated to the area in 1888 from Lewis. 

The brothers knew many stories from their years growing up and in particular recounted tales of the relationship between the Presbyterian Scots and the Catholic French, who also lived in the area. Each group lived on its side of where there now is highway 23, and the village of Dunrea was split in two by the railway line that ran through the middle of it.

Donald and Angus MacDonald

The area where the crofters, who arrived in 1888, homesteaded is now mostly flat fields, with very few farms still in operation on the original sites. None of the old farm buildings have survived to this date but the old church where the brothers remember spending two and a half hour every Sunday morning and one hour every Sunday evening still stands on the corner of the old McLeod homestead. It is a timber frame building on a stone foundation. It was built by the crofters in 1906, the second building after the earlier one built out of stones in 1890 collapsed. The church was served by a Gaelic speaking minister until the 1930s when services started being conducted in English.