Jón Jónsson from Sleðbrjót wrote articles in Ólafur Þorgeirsson’s Almanak in Winnipeg, including about settlers in the Shoal Lake Settlement (Grunnavatnsbyggð) in Manitoba. He got settlers to tell their story, describe their arrival in the West and their first years there. Árni F. Magnússon said so in his letter published in the Almanak in 1912.
A. M. Freeman: “I was born at Fótaskinni in Þingeyjarsýsla on March 27, 1854. My given name is Árni Frímann, but because clumsy record keepers in this country, where I worked for the first few years, could never write my real last name and I often lost money for it, I decided to write A. M. Freeman and I’ve been going by that name ever since. My parents were: Magnús Jónsson, Jónsson who once lived on Barðsá by Eyjafjörður and Guðrún Jónsdóttir Halldórsson who last lived in Árbót in Aðal-Reykjadalur. My parents also lived in Aðal-Reykjadalur. When I was 16, I left my parents and became a worker on various farms in the rural community. I was a casual worker for two years, I did it to get a little education. The first winter I was instructed in writing, arithmetic and Danish by Rev. Benedikt Kristjánsson at Grenjaðarstaðir and Jón Þórarinsson at Laugavatn, but the second winter I studied a little English with Rev. Lárus Eysteinsson, who was then at Helgastaðir because I was already in line to go to Canada. In 1884, I moved west across the ocean with my father, who is still alive and living at my home. We arrived in Winnipeg on August 10th. Almost a year later I got married. My wife is Jónína Elizabet Björnsdóttir, farmer Jónsson from Dálkastaðir by Eyjafjörður. My wife’s mother was Soffia Sigurðardóttir, Þorsteinsson, her father was Sigurður, the brother of Indriði the goldsmith in Víðivellir and Rev. Hjálmar who was last a priest in Kirkjubær in Hróarstunga. – I stayed in Winnipeg for almost 3 years and moved from there to here in the settlement”.
English version by Thor group.