Lögberg-Heimskringla - 09.07.1993, Blaðsíða 1

[Lögberg ]
eimskringla
The lcelandic Weekly
Lógberg Stofnaö 14. januar 1888
Heimskringla Stofnaö 9. september 1886
Inslde this week:
Huldufolk Found and Exposed in Gimli.........2
Fairy Tale Art flies away to lceland............3
PROFILE: Fred Sigmundson: Life as a work of art.6
Gimli: Nature Lends a Hand...................7
Þjóðhátíð— lceland's National Celebration....8
107. Árgangur
107th Year
Publications Mail Registration No. 1667
Föstudagur 9. júlí 1993
Friday, 9 July 1993
Númer 26
Number 26
loelandic
News
New rate of exchange
as of June 29, 1993:
Buying Selling
US dollar
70.960
71.140
Can. dollar
55.410
55.550
lcelander fatally shot
in robbery:
■ An lcelander líving in South Africa was
the unintentional victim to a gang rob-
berv at a qas station in Johannesburg.
Áccording to daily Morgunblaðið, 34
year old Gunnar Pétursson was struck by
a bullet as he pulled up to a gas pump at
approxímately 6:40 am on his way to
work.
Police in Johannesburg, said a group
of four men apparently lost their cool
after robbing the station of its nightly
receipts, spraying their immediate sur-
roundings with a haíl of bullets as they
fled from the scene in two automobiles
captured on film by video surveillance
cameras.
At the same time, the local law author-
ities said suspicions had led them to nar-
row theír search for the perpetrators to a
specifíc group of persons but that no
proof had as yet been found.
Courtesy, News from lceland.
Progressive Party
with most support:
■ A new Gallup poll shows the
Progressive Party enjoys the most support
nation-wide and a broader followíng than
the traditionally strong Independence
Party.
According to the results of a 1,200-
person survey, the opposition Progressive
Party currently boasts a 32% support rate
against a slightly less 28% for the ruling
Independence Party, currently in a coali-
tion with the Socíal Democratic Party.
Support for the two-party government
has also fallen, to just over 30%».
The Gallup poll is the first ever to
place support for the Progressive Party
above that of the Independence Party.
Courtesy, News from lceland.
Ex-prime miníster and leader of the
Progressive Party
Steingrímur Hermannsson.
Birgir
A Common
The August long week-
end (in Canada)
approaches and with
it comes, as always,
íslendingadagurinn, the
annual celebration held in
Gimli.
It is not to detract from
the value and importance
of all the other celebrations
and festivals held by
Icelandic communities
throughout North America
— nor is it provincialism, a
reflection of the fact that
this newspaper is produced
out of Manitoba — to say
that this is the big one, the
most important event of the
year for the North
American Icelandic com-
munity as a whole.
People come from across
Canada, across the United
States and from Iceland
itself. They come to enjoy
themselves, to have fun —
many who attend in fact,
are not even of Icelandic
descent, they just come for
a good party. Those who
are, however, come for
another reason as well, a
very special reason. They
come to celebrate the sur-
vival, against all odds, of
the Icelandic identity in the
vast North American melt-
ing pot and where better to
do that than in Gimli, in
the heart of New Iceland.
That survival is no small
feat, but it is attested to by
the many organizations that
represent the Icelandic
community on this conti-
nent. Among them is this
newspaper, Lögberg-
Heimskringla. There is the
Icelandic chair at the
University of Manitoba,
founded and still supported
by the people themselves.
There is the Icelandic
National League, with its
international network of
clubs and affiliates. There is
the Canada Iceland
Foundation, which raises
money for the Icelandic
department at the universi-
ty and other worthy causes,
the Icelandic Canadian
magazine, and many other
organizations in Canada

f United Sfates too
numerous to even eount,
not least among them the
festival committee itself,
which works so tirelessly
amd selfle$sly to ensure that |
íslendingadaguritm takes
place eaeh year. That this
ideatity has been preserved
for more than 100 years by
only a fffw peopie — in
Nörth American terms —
from a small, obscure, but
entirely remarkabte isiand
in the North Atlantic is
truly astonishing.
11 of these organiza-
tions share a com-
. mon purpose: to
ensure that the icelandic
.identity, the hentage, the
cuiture, the language, sur-
vive on this continent, It is
a job that grows more
Cult with each succeeding
generation. Neither is it
made any easier by the fact
thöt we seem to be by
iiiiiilliactious people —
: and debate:
paper are open to them all
as a vehicle to get their
message across to the com-
munity and we continue to
urge them to takc advan-
tage of that opportunity.
But commón cause does
not always mean total
agreCment, particularly in a
smali community such as
ours- There are still many
disputes about methods
and policies and dctails
”Ht-
That is not in itself a bad
thing. Debate, discussion,
even controversy, can be
useful and helpfui and stim-
alone there have been two
major schisms in the
Icelandic community, Jptl'
over religion. The fírst was
a split between two synods
of the Lutheran church,
which resulted in a lot of
people leaving New Iceland
for the United States; the
second a split between the
Lutherans and the
Unitarians, the effects of
which are still felt today.
There have been countless
other minor quarrels. This
paper, in fact, as many sub-
scribers will remember, was
once two papers, Lögberg
and Heimskringla, which
often went at each other
hammer and tongs until it
became clear that two
newspapers could not sur-
vive and they merged into
what you receive today.
Lögberg-Heimskringla as
it exists today supports all
of the other organizations
in every way it can. It can-
not help them financially
because it is barely able to
support itself (this is not a
plea for donations, but if
you happen to have any
we iiave had a lively and
constructíve discussion in
the paper about what we
should call íQurselves — a
debate thaf started inno-
cently eflóUgh pád then
took on a life of its own. It
was both informative aud
uitötstíflg and drew iu par-
ticipanfs from aíl over
North America.
i-nhere has also been
some controversy
over the paper itself,
which, though small, has
been hurtful and destruc-
tive to it as an institution,
so this might be a good
time to review what
Lögberg-Heimskringla is
and what it is not.
It is an utterly indepen-
dent organization, a news-
paper run by a non-profit
organization set up for that
purpose. It is not controlled
by the INL, the Icelandic
department, the Canada
Iceland Foundation or
any other organization,
although it appreciates
their co-operation and sup-
port. Examples of the latter
are recent articles by the
staff of the Icelandic
department, Kirsten Wolf
and Víðar Hreinsson,
which were among the
most stimulating, informa-
tive and literate that we
have run this year, and the
special Outreach issues of
É\\
the paper
produced
in conjunc-
tion with
the INL.
But the
paper is
not the By Tom Oleson
voice of
any other
organization; neither does
it pretend to speak for
them. Nor is it controlled
by any of them or take
instruction from them,
although it welcomes their
opinions and advice. Its
content is solely the
responsibility of the editor
and it takes instruction
only from its board of
directors and, of course, its
subscribers who are gener-
ally, in fact, overwhelming-
ly, loyal and supportive.
Lögberg-Heimskringla
is more, however,
than its staff or board
of directors. They are tran-
sient things. It is probably a
safe bet that in ten years
none of the people now
associated with the paper
will still be directly involved.
One profoundly hopes,
however, that the paper
itself, as one of most impor-
tant and potentially useful
institutions of the North
American Icelandic commu-
nity will still be here. It will
be different from what it is
now, at least as different as
it is today from what it was
10 years ago. One hopes,
again, that it will be better.
This year we will once
again publish a special issue
to help celebrate íslendinga-
dagurinn. But íslendinga-
dagurinn should be more
than a celebration, more
than just a great party. It
should be a time for us to
remember that we all share
the same blood and have a
common cause, a time to
heal any wounds that may
still need healing and unite
behind that cause; a time to
reflect on the lucky fact that,
of all the people in the
world, we are the very few
who were chosen to be of
Icelandic descent.