Icelandic Canadians
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (Icelandic 94,205 (by ancestry, 2011 Census) 0.3% of Canada's population) |
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Canada
|
|
 Manitoba
|
30,025 |
 British Columbia
|
22,600 |
 Alberta
|
17,075 |
 Ontario
|
13,130 |
| Languages | |
| Canadian English · Icelandic | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity (Predominantly Protestant) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
|
Icelandic Americans Faroese Canadians, Greenlandic Canadians Norwegian Canadians Swedish Canadians, Danish Canadians, Dutch Canadians, Flemish Canadians See Icelanders |
|
Icelandic Canadians are Canadian citizens of Icelandic ancestry or Iceland-born people who reside in Canada.
Canada has the largest ethnic Icelandic population outside Iceland, with about 94,205 people of Icelandic descent as of the Canada 2011 Census. Many Icelandic Canadians are descendants of people who fled an eruption of the Icelandic volcano Askja in 1875.
The history between Icelanders and North America dates back approximately one thousand years. The very first Europeans to reach North America were Icelandic Norsemen, who made at least one major effort at settlement in what is today Newfoundland (L'Anse aux Meadows) around 1009 AD. Snorri Þorfinnsson, the son of Þorfinnr Karlsefni and his wife Guðríður, is the first European known to have been born in the New World. In 1875, over 200 Icelanders immigrated to Manitoba establishing the New Iceland colony along the west shore of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, this is the first part of a large wave of immigrants who settled on the Canadian prairies.
According to historian Gunnar Karlsson, "migration from Iceland is unique in that most went to Canada, whereas from most or all other European countries the majority went to the United States. This was partly due to the late beginning of emigration from Iceland after the Canadian authorities had begun to promote emigration in cooperation with the Allan Line, which already had an agent in Iceland in 1873. Contrary to most European countries, this promotion campaign was successful in Iceland, because emigration was only just about to start from there and Icelandic emigrants had no relatives in the United States to help them take the first steps".
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Wikipedia