Wakeful Nights. Stephan G. Stephansson: Icelandic-Canadian Poet.

Smith, Donald B.

Wakeful Nights. Stephan G. Stephansson: Icelandic-Canadian Poet by Vidar Hreinsson,. Calgary: Benson Ranch Inc., 607 pp., illus., hardcover, $40.

In 2002 and 2003 the Icelandic literary scholar Vidar Hreinsson published his prize-winning two-volume biography of Icelandic-Canadian writer Stephan G. Stephansson (1853-1927). The important poet lived for the last half of his life on his farm near Markerville in central Alberta. A decade later Hreinsson has prepared a welcome one-volume English language edition of his Stephansson biography. The fact that the Stephansson House is a provincial historic site makes this impressive biography of special importance to Albertans. Each year from May 15 to Labour Day one can visit the attractive home of the Albertan writer now remembered as one of Iceland's greatest poets.

The author's account begins with Stephansson's early life spent on isolated farms in northern Iceland before his family's migration first to Icelandic settlements in Wisconsin and North Dakota. In 1889 they settled in Alberta. The book includes an incredibly rich collection of photographs and maps. The skillful researcher has extracted a wealth of information from Icelandic sources, in particular contemporary newspapers and letters. From the author's translations into English of Stephansson's poetry one learns a great deal about the self-educated farmer's original views of the world. The biographer expertly describes how his radically liberal ideas evolved: his advocacy of women's rights and his esteem for the values of small nations and ethnic groups, his pacifism during World War I. His Icelandic wife, Helga Sigridur, supported him fully in his work. Stephansson's many responsibilities made it difficult for him to find time for writing. His farm chores continually pulled him away from half-finished thoughts and poems. This major poet cut firewood, tended cows, fed the pigs and worked at the harvest. On occasion he would rush in from outside work to jot down some lines before he forgot them.

He and Helga had eight children six of whom survived to full adulthood. Family responsibilities when the children were young also restricted his opportunities to read, think, and write. As he grew older he suffered from chronic insomnia, hence the title of the biography, "Wakeful Nights," when he wrote many of his over 2,000 pages of poetry. In 1917 he was honoured by a speaking tour of his native Iceland, the country that he had left forty-four years earlier at the age of nineteen.

Vidar Hreinsson has written a fascinating biography of Stephan G. Stephansson. He is the master of his copious sources and presents a living three-dimensional portrait of this important critical thinker.

Reviewed by Donald B. Smith, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Calgary.