A Pillar of Icelandic Pride

Mountain, N.D.’s name is an oxymoron. The town isn’t on top of a mountain, or even a hill. It sits on a slight rise in the landscape that once was the edge of prehistoric Lake Agassiz.

But to the town’s first settlers, who arrived in 1878, the rise looked like a mountain compared to the miles of flat prairie they had to cross to get to North Dakota. So, they named the town in honor of their mountainous homeland of Iceland, and their descendants have kept in touch with their roots ever since.

“We’ve been accused of being incredibly proud of our heritage,” says Loretta Bernhoft, whose great-grandfather, Phorfinnur Johanesson, was one of the region’s early settlers. “Some might call it obsessive.”

Mountain (pop. 133) was one of several small communities—including Akra and Gardar—in Pembina County settled by Icelanders attracted by the promise of free, productive farmland.

Indications of the county’s Icelandic roots are present in names such as Icelandic State Park, 10 miles north of town, and in the local phone directory, which lists surnames such as Gudmundson, Kristjanson, Steinolfson and Thorfinnson.

Bernhoft is among the local residents who still make Icelandic dishes such as vinerterta, a prune-filled cake, and kleinur, a deep-fried doughnut, and attend the 1880 Vikur Lutheran Church, the oldest Icelandic church in North America.

“I was baptized there, confirmed there, married there, and no doubt will be buried there,” says Bernhoft, 53, who farms with her husband, Wayne.

Each year for more than a century, residents have honored their heritage with the August the Deuce Icelandic Celebration. The event, scheduled July 30-Aug. 1, commemorates the day in 1874 when Danish King Kristjan the Ninth delivered a new constitution to the Icelandic Parliament that led to the country’s independence. This year’s theme, The Family Heritage Celebration, hopes to encourage residents and visitors to hold family reunions and research their Icelandic roots.

One popular attraction during the celebration is a replica of a Viking ship—complete with dragon’s head—built by Rodney Byron to the same dimensions as vessels used by Iceland’s Scandinavian founders. Measuring 30 feet long and 9 feet wide, the ship’s not completely authentic; it rides on a truck frame and is propelled by an automatic transmission so it can be driven in parades.

In 1999, 10,000 people attended Mountain’s 100th observance of the August the Deuce celebration, including Iceland’s president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson. It marked the first time that a sitting head of a foreign nation visited North Dakota.

While Icelanders have long come to Mountain for the celebration and to visit relatives, travel and cultural exchanges have increased dramatically since Grimsson’s visit. Among those returning to their ancestral land were cast members of a play performed for audiences in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital, and two other Icelandic cities at the invitation of the president. The play was about the struggles of early settlers of Mountain.

“All Icelanders are related, it seems, because it’s such a small country,” says Magnus “Mike” Olafson, 83, who was knighted by Grimsson for his work in organizing cultural exchanges and preserving Icelandic history. Many around Mountain refer to Olafson as their “walking, talking historian.” Thanks in part to his efforts, the town expects hundreds of Icelanders to visit this summer and perhaps discover some relatives they have never met.

Iceland is 39,000 square miles, about half the size of North Dakota, and has 186,000 people. Their small, connected world is illustrated by Olafur Skulason, the retired bishop of the State Church of Iceland who accompanied Grimsson in 1999. Skulason’s first parish was Vikur Lutheran Church in Mountain.

“Our ties are as strong as when they first settled here,” Olafson says.

Ryan Bakken is a freelance writer in Thompson, N.D.

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