"The Iceland that faded from view and disappeared below the horizon as shipload after shipload of our forefathers charted their course for "Ameríka" during the last quarter of the 19th century was a place of austere beauty - a land of green valleys and shining fjords, snowcrowned mountains and blue mists. It was a strangely mystical place, that claimed for its own all its native sons and daughters, and retained over them a powerful hold no matter where their fates would lead them down through the years. It was a majestic land of proud traditions, and it was their home.
But 19th century Iceland was also a bleak and forbidding land shrouded by hardship and suffering - a place of gnawing hunger, bitter cold, grim pestilence, and baleful oppression. These were largely the results of a harsh environment, characterized by intermittent sieges of polar ice and fiery volcanic eruptions - but there were deeply-rooted social and economic problems as well, including overpopulation, disparity, underdevelopment, and trade monopolization - all of which contributed to a general state of disillusionment and misery for large segments of the population.
Those who left Iceland during these years did so for a multitude of reasons - personal, economic, social, political, and religious - all of them considerations most of us can scarcely understand a hundred and more years later in our land of plenty and our society of personal freedom above all else. Each emigrant had his or her own story, and as those of us who are the descendants of these people from another land and another age have a rich heritage in the past which shaped these stories, this history begins with an account of the conditions and customs prevalent in the land they left."

Nelson S. Gerrard: Icelandic River Saga

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