New Iceland

New Iceland ( ) is the name of a region on Lake Winnipeg in the Canadian province Manitoba which was named for settlers from Iceland. It was settled in 1875.
Background.
The first Icelandic emigrants to Canada were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from the Westman Islands. The more general migration followed an offer from Lord Dufferin of land in Manitoba to establish what amounted to a "free state".
Due to harsh environmental and economic conditions in Iceland, including the eruption of Mount Askja, some 20,000 Icelanders left their homeland between 1870 and 1915—roughly a quarter of the population of Iceland. In 1875 a large group of Icelandic immigrants migrated from Ontario to Manitoba, leaving Kinmount, Ontario, on 25 September 1875, for Gimli, Manitoba, on the shores of Lake Winnipeg. One of the main reasons for the choice of the colony site was “the abundance of fish” in Lake Winnipeg, but according to "The Icelandic People in Manitoba", their first attempts at fishing on Lake Winnipeg were not successful, partly because they set their nets too close to the shore. Moreover, the “winter of 1875–1876 was one of the coldest on record in Manitoba, and the settlers’ clothes, including the leather shoes from Ontario, were not suitable for the rigorous weather”. However, the immigrants eventually learned to handle the ax, prepare the soil, fish through ice, and hunt game. They also learned how to drain the land, grow crops, and build better houses.
These Icelandic settlers, known in their native language as "Vestur-Íslendingar" (meaning Icelanders in the West; initially many Icelanders did not see emigration as a change of country, and there was some discussion of moving the entire population), called their settlement "New Iceland", and the region remains a symbolic center of the Icelandic heritage in Canada today.