Jón Jónsson was born in Sauðanes in Húnavatnssýsla on January 1, 1872. He took the name Jón J. Húnfjörð or Jon Hunfjord in the west.
Unmarried and childless.
Jón came west to Winnipeg in 1887 and moved to the Akra Settlement in N. Dakota. He worked at various farms there until he moved west to British Columbia and settled in the fertile Okanagan Valley. He worked there in logging and growing vegetables and fruits. He joined the Canadian Army in 1916, was sent to England in 1917, returned to Canada at the end of 1918 and stayed in the Brown Settlement until spring. He then returned to Iceland and stayed there until the autumn of 1920. He came back west, now with his brother Guðmundur, who stayed with him in Brown for a few years but then went back to Iceland. Jón rented out part of his land but used the rest for gardening. The experience from the Okanagan Valley came in handy now; he turned to forestry and many shelterbelts in the area are his work.