Lögberg-Heimskringla - 14.06.1991, Page 1

Lögberg
neimsKringia
The lcelandic Weekly
Logberg Stofnað 14. janúar 1888 Heimskringla Stofnað 9. september 1886
Inside this week
Yes, we're older ..............
"Oh, those Viking hands" ......
Hekla in Spain.................
Canadian Ethnocultural Council
105. Árgangur Föstudagur 14. júní 1991
105th Year Friday, 14 June 1991
page 2
.....3
.....4
.....5
Númer 22
Number 22
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Top Mountie trades
white coat for red
tween the force and city police.
Henry, who is retiring after
five years at the helm of the
Manitoba RCMP, said he hopes
Bergman can build on the “mo-
mentum” which has developed
during the last five years.
“I think we’ve made some
real strides with the aboriginal
and multicultural community
which I’m quite proud of,” said
Henry, who is moving to
Kelowna, B.C.
Premier Gary Filmon, who
oversaw yesterday’s swearing-
in ceremony, said the selection
of Bergman means the province’s Ice- and popping their buttons,” he said,
landic community is represented in two noting both Bergman and chief provin-
of the top law enforcement jobs in the cial court Judge Kris Stefanson are Ice-
þrovincé. landíc-Canadiahs.
“The Icelanders are going to be proud Courtesy of Winnipeg Free Press
A giant of a musician
“A giant of a musician” is what Tómas R. Einarsson, of the Icelandic newspaper
Þjóðviljinn, calls Jón Páll Bjamason, who will be performing atthe Jazz Winnipeg
Festival on June 20.
Richard Bergman with Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon
lcelandic
News
Champions:
The lcelanders are making great
strides in many sports. Thisyear, theír
youth basketball team, made up of
males 18 years old and younger, be-
came Nordic youth champions by
defeating the other Scandinavian
teams.
Iceland's youth team handball
team was also victorious. It brought
home the Nordic youth team hand-
ball champion title.
A novel restaurant:
AnewrestaurantvHúsíðásféttunni
(The House on the Prairie), was
opened at the beginning of June, in
Hveragerði. The hexagonal structure
is located by the local Tivolí building.
Dinner guests will be offered food
cooked ín a specially designed,
geothermally-heated oven located
outside the building. In the above
photo, restauranteur Ólafur
Reynisson sits in thé dug out where
the hot spring oven wíll be installed.
Saved again:
Being an lcelandíc fisherman ís no
child's play, as Svanur Heiðarsson,
from Rif on Snasfellsnes, recently
found out. He gat caught in the
f'shíng gearof the boat EsjarSH, and
was pulled overboard. After spend-
'n9 some time in the ocean, his ship-
^rtates managed to pull him back
°n board. Svanur’s wife, Hrönn
Vigfúsdóttir, feelsherfamily has been
protected and blessed because this
ls the third time that Svanur narrowly
oscaped drowning, and in 1987, their
older son almost drowned in the
Water-filled foundation of a house
under construction.
Translated from lcelandlc
^ newspapers. H.K.D. j
By Paul Wiecek
Manitoba’s new top cop traded in
his white lab coat for red serge on June
4, leaving behind a world of bite marks
and blood spatters that made him one
of Canada’s foremost forensic experts.
Assistant Commissioner Richard
Bergman, who formally took over
command of the RCMP in Manitoba,
brings with him an office wall filled
with chairmanships, directorships and
academic awards eamed during a two-
decade career in the mysterious world
of forensic science.
He also shoots a mean game of golf.
“Mid- to high 80s, I guess. I like to
golf,” Bergman grinned, momentsafter
being sworn in as comfnanding officer
at the RCMP’s Portage Avenue head-
quarters.
While his golf score would be the
envy of any weekend duffer, it is
Bergman’s reputation as a scientist that
made him RCMP Commissioner
Norman Inkster’s choice to replace
Assistant Commissioner Dale Heniy
as the province’s top police officer.
Bergman’s last job — director of
RCMP’s national crime laboratory in
Ottawa — is the pinnacle for Canada’s
forensic scientists, who use hair, blood
andeven DNA to put a growing number
of criminals behind bars.
“Science is becoming an implicit
part of police work in this country,”
said Bergman, who has a master’s de-
gree in biochemistry.
Loyalty comes before science, how-
ever, and Bergman said the opportunity
to return to his native Manitoba as
commanding officer after 28 years on
the force was one he could not refuse.
“I enjoyed my work, but I’ve spent a
long time doing it and the chance to
come back here like this was some-
thing I wanted to do,” the 50 year-old
Flin Flon native said.
Now that he’s here, Bergman said,
there are several things he wants to
accomplish, including building on the
relationship Henry established wi th the
province’s aboriginal community.
“I will certainly be meeting with all
the representatives of the native com-
munity in the coming weeks,” he said,
adding he hopes to set up an advisory
committee on native issues.
Bergman said increasing the number
of women and other visible minorities
on the force is also a priority, as is
maintaining a good relationship be-
Einarsson is not the only one to hold
Jón Páll in high regard — Leonard
Feather, the intemationally renowned
jazz critic, upon hearing Jón Páll’s 1990
C.D., ICE, writes: “where has this man
been? Why has he not at least shown up
in one of those ‘Talent Deserving Wider
Recognition’ segments of the Down Beat
ión Páll Bjarnason
polls.” Feather concludes his review by
stating: “ One can only hope that very
soon he will be a familiar name to the
jazz community at large.”
Mr. Feather’s hope has come tme, at
least in terms of the Winnipeg jazz com-
munity, which will have an opportu-
nity to hear Jón Páll Bjamason play on
June 20, at 7: P.M. at the Muriel
Richardson Auditorium at the Winni-
peg Art Gallery.
Jón Páll was bom in Iceland in 1938.
He received classical music training
from the age of 8; between 1948 and
1957 he studied music history, ear train-
ing, and orchestration at the Reykjavík
College of Music in Iceland where he
majored on Cello and Piano and in
Music Theory. Jón Páll, who is a self-
taught jazz guitarist, started playing the
guitar at age 12. In 1955, he started
playing electric guitar professionally,
and formed his own jazz combo in
1957.
Jón Páll has played with such greats
as Thad Jones, Red Mitchell, Jimmy
Heath.the Buddy Rich Big Band, Dave
Koonse, Joe Pass, Tal Farlow,the Chuck
Flores Big Band and Combo, and oth-
ers.
Tickets for Jón Páll’s performance,
which bears the appropriate title HID-
DEN TREASURES, are available at
Select-A-Seat at $ 15 apiece.