Lögberg-Heimskringla - 02.10.1992, Side 1

Lögberg
I ■ ■■■
neimsKringia
The lcelandic Weekly
Lögberg Stofnað 14. janúar 1888 Heimskringla Stofnaö 9. september 1
Inside this week:
Celebration at the Saga Ranch......................2
lceland's First Airline............................3
Looking for roots..............................4 & 5
Upcoming Events.................................. 6
106. Árgangur Föstudagur 2. október 1992 Númer 34
106th Year Publications Mail Registration No. 1667 Friday, 2 Oc tober 1992 Number 34
Shrimp from
Canada to lceland:
The fish processing plant at Ólafsvík
on Snæfellsnes, lceland, has bought
100 tons of shrimp from Nova Scotia
for processing in its plant. Icelandic
fish processing plants around the
country are increasing their purchas-
es of fish from foreign trawlers to
keep theír plants operatíonal and
stave off unemployment in the vii-
lages.
Icelanders are
generous:
23 million lcelandic Kronur have
been raised from the general public
through the efforts of the Red Cross
and the Churches Relief
Organization in lceland for the sup-
port of the starving people of
Somalia.
This ís approximately $1.92 Cdn.
per mah, woman and child ín
lceland. If this is multiplied by the
population of Canada ít would mean
that Canádians would raise $50 mil-
lion from the general public and íf
raised from the same source in the
USA the amount would be approxi-
mately $500 míllion.
10oo
lcelandic Stamps sold at
Southeby's:
lcelandic Postal Stamps sold for
£8000 at an auction at Southeby's in
London, Sept. 10th. The stamps
Were an 1930 issue commemorating
the "Alþingishátíð" that sold for
£5000 and included a 49-page book
explaining the history of the íssue.
Also sold were a collection of
stamps from 1873 - 1940 which sold
fcr £3000. Thís issue had been val-
ued at between £1800 - 2200.
(In Canadian dollars the total value
would be approximately $16000.)
k Translated from Morgunblaðið ,
A note to our readers
By Tom Oleson
HI!
haLis not_much of lead for a
front page newspaper article,
and it might get me fired from
any other newspaper - it might even
get me fired from this one, but in my
time I’ve been fired from worse places
than this.
It is, however, appropriate for what
I am about to do. You won’t see many
articles like this on the front page of
Lögberg-Heimskringla in the coming
months. We hope to reserve this space
for news and high-quality features
about the events taking place in com-
munities in Western Iceland and in
Iceland itself. But I am presuming to
take this space myself today because I
want to explain to our subscribers
what is happening at the paper and to
ask them for something. NO! Don’t
stop reading! I am not asking for
money - at least not yet; that comes
later in this article but you can safely
read on for a few paragraphs yet.
It might be useful to explain why I
am writing this. As most of our sub-
scribers will know by now, regular edi-
tor Hulda Karen Daníelsdóttir has
taken matemity leave. She is sched-
uled to retum in March and we wish
her well with the new addition to her
family. In the interim, I am filling in as
editor, Birgir Brynjólfsson has been
performing the duties of Icelandic edi-
tor, as well as advertising director and
taking on the responsibility of making
sure that there are no egregious errors
in Icelandic that appear on the English
pages - no small job, considering the
fundamental illiteracy of the acting
editor. Laurie Oleson has taken on the
duties of editorial assistant, and
Rosemarie Isford is working in the
office from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday
to Friday.
A newspaper necessarily reflects
the interests and inclinations of its edi-
tor. You will notice - you may already
have noticed - that the paper you have
received in the last few weeks is not
quite the same as the paper you
received previously. The blame for that
is entirely mine. If you do not like the
way it is, I hope you will bear with us
until the board in its wisdom gives me
the boot. I also hope that you will
write to tell us what you like - and
more importantly, what you do not
like - about Lögberg-Heimskringla. It
strikes me that our subscribers are
inordinately polite for a collection of
Icelanders. If you don’t like some-
thing, if there is something that you
think is missing, write to us, let us
know what you want. We may not
agree with you, but maybe we will,
and in either case it will get us think-
ing.
Now comes the pitch. We need
your help. Lögberg-Heimskringla’s
mandate is to cover the Western
Icelandic community in North
America, indeed, Icelanders, wherever
they are found in the diaspora, and to
report to them on events that are tak-
ing place in Iceland itself. Unfor-
tunately, this is a shoestring operation
financially. We cannot afford to send a
reporter to B.C, or Washington or
West Virginia or North Dakota to
cover events in those places. Neither
can we afford to send a reporter to
Hong Kong to interview the sole sub-
scriber we have in that distant Asian
city, much as the acting editor would
like to undertake the assignment.
We can, however, cover the extend-
ed community, with your help. Recent
issues of L-H have featured an article
on Point Roberts and other features
highlighting events in various commu-
nities. This issue features a hunt for a
family’s roots in North Dakota and a
a feature on the activities of the Hekla
club in Minnesota. These are articles
written by interested individuals and
sent to us. We hope you will continue
to send them, but we also want some-
thing more. All over North America
there are Icelandic communities. In
each of them, we would like someone
to undertake the task of writing a brief
history of their community - the
emphasis is on brief - and how it is
faring today. We would like to hear
from people from Lundar to Utah,
from Vancouver Island to the
Maritimes. It is by knowing each other
that we can keep our identity;
Lögberg-Heimskringla can help us
know each other.
Finally, I would ask you to remem-
ber to renew your subscriptions -1 just
renewed mine, late, I am ashamed to
say - and to remember that your dona-
tions are a major factor in keeping this
ancient paper alive. In the meantime,
I hope that you and I, and Birgir,
Rosemarie, Laurie and Barbara and
Ray Gislason of Keystone Graphics,
who do such excellent work in the
production of this paper, can have
some interesting exchanges and maybe
a bit of fun together, too.
Lögberg-Heimskringla
Annual
Meeting
October 6, 1992
7 p.m.
Icelandic Room
Scandinavian Centre
764 Erin Street, Wpg, J