Lögberg-Heimskringla - 26.10.1990, Blaðsíða 3

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 26. október 1990 • 3
An address given by
honourary degree
recipient
Dr. Haraldur Bessason
Dr. Haraldur Bessason
A few decades ago I joined the Ice-
landic ethnic community in Manitoba.
This small community then included
People who had emigrated from Iceland
to Canada in the 1870’s. Some of them
had left their native land in the firm
belief that the country they were des-
tined for was one of abundance and
opportunities. One of the Icelandic
Canadian pioneer poets even went as
far as to write that Canada was not
only known for its plentiful natural
resources but also as the land “where
People rarely die”.
Even though life everlasting did not
thrust itself upon the Icelanders who
settled on the Canadian prairies, they
retained to a remarkable degree the
explorers vision of the fabulous quali-
ties of the North American continent.
It was this vision, I believe, which
gave them added strength in their own
pioneer world which they often expe-
fienced as both unfamiliar and hostile.
Comparing university graduands to
lTnmigrant-explorers who are about to
stake their claims in a new territory
^Pay sound as a platitude. Neverthe-
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less, I shall use the analogy between
the two categories in question. I may
add that the university graduands’ vi-
sion of the future not only extends to
matters of private and personal ad-
vancementbut also to the progress of a
particular academic discipline. Corre-
spondingly, immigrants to this country
have tried not only to achieve a re-
spectable position but, as is well known
here in Canada, they have often been
eager to promote their own heritage
and native languages.
These two points both strengthen
my analogy and vindicate, on this fes-
tive occasion, my telling a story about
a young and enterprising Icelandic
immigrant-explorer by the nameof Jón
Ólafsson, who came to North America
in the early 1870’s.
Mr. Ólafsson was a well educated
man, filled with zest and vigour and
thus prepared to play a leading role in
the young Icelandic ethnic community
in North America. Shortly after his
arrival in the United States, he made it
his task to help persuade President
Ulysses Grant to indicate his willing-
ness to designate a certain region in
the state of Alaska as a suitable site for
an Icelandic colony or settlement.
As a result of the president’s fa-
vourable disposition in this matter,
Ólafsson and two other young Icelan-
dic immigrants went to Alaska to ex-
plore the proposed colony site. As the
three explorers had completed their
mission, Ólafsson wrote a detailed re-
port on Alaska with additional forecasts
and predictions as to the future of
Icelandic immigrants to that state. His
report was published in 1875 and then
submitted to the President ofthe United
States.
One section of Mr. Ólafsson’s publi-
cation offers intriguing estimates or
predictions of population increases in
the proposed colony together with
comments on the future of the colonists’
native language. In essence Ólafsson
predicted that it would only take the
Icelanders in Alaska a few centuries to
reach in number the one hundred
million mark. This was also the length
of time, Ólafsson wrote, which it would
take the Icelandic language to spread
not only across the northernmost re-
gions of this continent, but as far south
as the border between Canada and the
United States.
At that stage Ólafsson was confi-
dent that nothing could halt its further
progress. This prediction is most likely
without a parallel in published sur-
veys of the geographic distribution of
the world languages. We even get the
impression from reading Ólafsson that
a language may tum into an elemental
force, leave its speakers behind and
then roll on like a flood tide or a hurri-
cane.
We must admit, more than a century
after Jón Ólafsson submitted his re-
port on Alaska to the President of the
United States, that Alaska Icelandic is
unlikely ever to have any appreciable
influences on the present Canadian
community of languages. Jón Ólafsson
failed indeed to tailor his future vision
to the realm of reality and ordinary
mortals. Instead of founding their
colony in Alaska, the Icelanders had to
content themselves with Winnipeg and
a few areas in rural Manitoba and
Saskatchewan.
Despite all this, we should not al-
together dismiss the immigrant-ex-
plorer Jón Ólafsson. He had his place
in the scheme of things in that he lived
and moved on the mythological plane
where the laws of nature have been
suspended and even death does not
occur, which in itself might explain the
enormous population increases
Ólafsson predicted for the Alaska
colony.
The mythological plane I just men-
tionedis an integral part of a theoretical
frame in which Professor Northrop Frye
of Toronto once placed a large body of
world literature as
he tried to show
how this literature
may be classifiedby
the hero’s or main
character’s power
of action. This
power, Mr. Frye
maintained, may
be greater than
ours, less, or
roughly the same.
If we keep in mind
that literature al-
ways reflects life
itself, we can easily
assign the present
graduands their
heroic roles. To ex-
plain this further,
the highest plane
on Professor Frye’s scale is the level of
myth where, as I have pointed out, the
immortal hero has unlimited power of
action and the laws of nature have
been suspended. This is the world of
thefantastic where we mighteven meet
up with a crowd of one hundred million
Icelanders.
On the next level down the hero,
although outstanding and capable of
superhuman accomplishments, is nev-
ertheless subjectto seriouslimitations.
In these surroundings, mortality has
been introduced. We may then con-
tinue our descent along Professor Frye’s
literary scale down to the realm of
ordinary mortals where the laws of
nature are fully enforced.
It is interesting to observe how the
creators of literature appear to use the
scale I have briefly described to elevate
a certain hero or principal character
from the world of mortals to the high-
est level of immortal beings, or, con-
versely, divest such beings of their
immortality by moving them down the
scale to the world of ordinary humans.
If we cling to the belief that litera-
ture reflects life itself, we may infer
that Professor Frye’s classification of
heroes in literature ultimately has its
basis in real life experiences of a wide
spectrum.
I shall then, Mr. Chancellor, con-
clude my address by expressing good
wishes to the present graduands with
the hope that they will be able to enjoy,
in healthy proportions, the entire
spectrum of life and literature; that
they will, at least occasionally, become
spiritual visitors to the highest levels
of existence and thus have the opportu-
nity to sense immortality; that they
will be able to catch a glimpse of un-
attainable objectives and, finally, derive
some strength from such fleeting ex-
periences to help them adjust reason-
ably well to the world of mortals - the
world where the laws of nature are
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