Short skim through the early Icelandics

1897, immigrants from Iceland to Gimli Manitoba bring Native horses with them.

1911, importation to CA.

1959 & 1960~ The Lee Brothers of Saskatchewan, Canada brought 120 horses from Iceland.

At about the same years other importations were done in both PA & NY.(I had one of the orignal mares from the NY one)There was no Icelandic horse Registry at that time, so they were Registered with the," Pony Breed Assoication".

1960~ Samuel Ashelman was involved with a large food co-op. He was invited to go visit Iceland, while there he bought, 1 stallion and 12 pregnant mares and brought them to the USA. Mr. Ashelman lived in Ashton MD, then moved to 1,800 acres at Berkeley Springs.

After 1961 some were sold to a breeder in Greely,Colorado, name has not yet been found. (Robin Hood,let me know that horses #1 through #150 in the CIHF were the early Icelandic's from the Pony breeders)

In the Mid 1960's some of these original Icelandics could be found with Laurie Veness in Washington Island, WI.

1965~ Miss Anne Rickert bought the youngsters from the original herd from Mr. Ashelman.

1970~ Peter Strong in Greenwich,CT shipped the the next load .

1970's ~Gunnar Bjarnason, helped get many of the present day Icelandic's imported to Canada, with Linda Telling-jones, Robin Hood and Susan Hodgson. Robin, can tell you about that time in detail. 1979? First Icelandic horse Registry was founded.

Unfortunately many of the original Icelandics brought to NA were not registered with this new Association.So there are many old purebred Icelandics out there without papers.

Then came the Early 1980's with Elizabeth Haug from Denmark to CA, with 38? Icelandics, along with the Faber family who moved to BC.