Lögberg-Heimskringla - 11.06.1999, Blaðsíða 2

2 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Friday 11 June 1999
Letters to the editor
Re: “A Trail Still Warm” by Harpa
Isfeld, L-H May 21, 1999.
As a participant and tour guide on the
April 30/99 trip to Kinmount, I want to
comment on her beautifully written
article. Reading it brought back all the
exceptional memories associated with
that day. The people on the bus were
particularly receptive to the span of
Canadian settlement and geological
history as it related to the early
Icelandic immigration at Kinmount,
and the subsequent founding of New
Iceland on the shores of Lake
Winnipeg.
Indeed, there were many thought-
ful events that day—especially during
moments of later reflection and sharing.
Harpa says it so well... “This place held
something in its air, its ground, some-
thing difficlult to describe... A 125-
year-old trail was still warm.” She
brought emotion and sensitivity to the
facts of history.
Don Gislason
Toronto
A Special Thanks to Neil Bardal
With the appoi'ntment of a Special
Envoy from Iceland to Canada, Neil
Bardal’s servicé as Consul General for
Iceland in Winnipeg has drawn to a
close, a position he has held since 1994.
Neil Bardal brought to the position a
wide range of experience and a keen
interest in serving the Icelandic-
Canadian community. He has been
President of the Icelandic National
League, Chair of the Board of Lögberg-
Heimskringla, Chair of the HIP
Committee, and has served on numer-
ous committees, including the Canada-
Iceland Foundation.
Neil Bardal’s appointment as
Consul General has been a very fortu-
nate one for the Department of
Icelandic. Neil Bardal played a major
and active role in the Department’s
organization of the symposium “The
Icelandic Presence in Canada” held a
couple of years ago in Gimli, and he
also delivered the closing speech at the
conference. Moreover, it was as a result
of his efforts that the Icelandic
Ambassador Einar Benediktsson
attended the conference and delivered
an address. When the University of
Manitoba’s presidential task force rec-
ommended the Department of Icelandic
be amalgamated with other depart-
ments in the Faculty of Arts, Neil
Bardal and Timothy Samson lent strong
support in arguing for the continued
autonomy of the Department and
attended the Department’s presentation
to the taskforce. Through his associa-
tion with the Department of Icelandic,
Neil Bardal has stood as a source of
sound and judicious advice and has
been unstinting in his interest in and
assistance to the Department, and
Daisy Neijmann and I wish to express
our thanks to him for his years of serv-
ice as Consul General in Winnipeg.
Kirsten Wolf
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Strengthening
Continued from page 1
Iceland, three possibilities were dis-
cussed:
• 1. the possibility of academics com-
ing and going on research/study
leaves
• 2. the possibility of a type of confer-
ence every two years
• 3. the possibility of student ex-
changes.
Since 1955, the
Govemment of Iceland,
through the Icelandic
National League, funds
two students a year to
go to Iceland to study.
Dean Currie also
gave a paper on survey
research methodolo-
gy—The Winnipeg
Area study—his own
area of expertise, at the
Nordic House, which
many academics at-
tended.
Other academic
encounters included:
• A meeting with Ms. Solrun
Jensdóttir, International Relations
Officer, Department of the Ministry of
Education, Science and Culture—the
Department that has given monies for
years to the Icelandic Collection at the
University of Manitoba and has provid-
ed funds to the Icelandic National
League for students to visit Iceland.
• Meeting with Einar Sigurðsson,
National Librarian, who took them on a
tour of the new National and University
Library of Iceland.
• Luncheon at City Hall, hosted by
Mrs. Guðrún Ágústsdótdr, President of
the City Council and Chairman of City
Planning and Traffic Council. This
luncheon included three young academ-
ics with interest in the Canadian
Icelandic presence.
• Meetings with Finnbogi Guð-
mundsson, the first chair of our depart-
ment of Icelandic (1951-94); Guðrún
Björk Guðsteins, Associate Professor
of English who has lectured several
times at the Univeristy of Manitoba,
and Professor Johann Axelsson, Head,
Department of Physiology at the
University of Iceland. He is best known
in Manitoba for his heart disease risk
research study including Manitobans of
Icelandic descent with genetically com-
parable residents of North East Iceland.
He noted that the University of
Manitoba Department of Icelandic ear-
lier had been successful in establishing
contact with University of Iceland, and
that this visit was able to broaden con-
tact beyond literature to other areas
including city planning, arctic ice
research, history of migration, and con-
tact with the college of Business
Administration.
Dean Currie hopes joint confer-
ences will be held every two years and
is actively working to try to facilitate
more frequent interaction with col-
leagues from Iceland and the University
of Manitoba.
The University of Manitoba will-
host an interdisciplinary conference in
October 2000 to celebrate the millenni-
um of Icelanders and the 125th anniver-
sary of the arrival of Icelanders in
Manitoba.
The trip was very successful; he
met a much larger number of individu-
als than he had expected who were
quite knowledgeable about the
University of Manitoba and wish to
become more informed. Dean Currie
credited Dr. Ken Thorlakson, Neil
Bardal, Icelandic Consul General for
Manitoba, and Ray Johnson, President
of the Icelandic National League, along
with Ambassador Svavar Gestsson and
his wife Guðrún Ágústsdóttir for their
outstanding work to make this visit pos-
sible.
Ken Howard’s maternal grandpar-
ents, Ragnheiður Jónsdóttir and
Gudmundur Ásmundsson emigrated
from the East Fjords of Iceland to
Canada in 1888, residing initially in the
Geysir Settlement of New Iceland, and
moved to Selkirk, Manitoba in 1895.
Páll Skúlason (left) with Svavar Gestsson.
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