Question 3 Icelanders have suffered a long history battling natural disaster. True. The poverty and natural disasters struck upon Icelanders date as far back as The Black Death from 1402-1404, which decimated two-thirds of the population. Danish trade restrictions, erupting volcanos and an epidemic that killed 200,000 sheep crippled Iceland's economy during the 1860s. That's what brought on the exodus from Iceland, many of whom came to Canada. The Icelandic immigrants who pioneered New Iceland, however, also experienced their share of hardship. The first winter killed several settlers from famine or scurvy because of a shortage of supplies. The next fall, the settlement was struck with small pox, followed soon after by scarlet fever and then diphtheria and measles. Quarantines killed the economy. Floods washed away what progress had been made on houses and farms. By 1881, the population of New Iceland, once at 2,000, had been reduced to 250 as Icelanders had again moved on in migration, leaving the colony for good. Next question