Lögberg-Heimskringla - 16.09.1994, Blaðsíða 1

Inside this week
Heimsknngla
The lcelandic Weekly
Lögberg Stofnaö 14. janúar 1888 Heimskringla Stofnaö 9. september 1886
lcelandic Heritage Day in Seattle.......2
Celebration in Seattle..................3
Recipes from Halli's Kitchen............4
A Twentieth-Century Saga................6
Upcoming Events.........................7
108. Árgangur Föstudagur 16. septerrtber 1994 Númer 31
108th Year Publications Mail Registration No. 1667 Friday, 16 September 1994 Number 31
lcelandic
News
Independent People:
■ The Swedish film director, Daniel
Bergman, and film producer, Bertil
Ohlson, arrived in lceland recently to dis-
cuss making a film about Halldór
Laxness' "Independent People". There
are now 60 years since the first work was
published. The book has been translat-
ed into many ianguages throughout the
world. Ólafur Ragnarsson manager of the
publishing company Vaka\ Helgafell and
the holder of publishing rights for
Laxness' books, says that many lcelandic
and foreign parties have shown interest
in making a movie based on
"Independent People”. A script has not
yet been written, but the plan is that Mr.
Bergman be the script writer. Bergman
and Ohlson intend to make more than
one movie, both for the screen and for
television.
The Strongest Woman:
■ The sports federation for eastern lce-
land held its 20th Summer Meet in July,
at Eiðar, with a great variety of sports
activities. Among them, the Valkyrie
Competition, where the strongest
women in the country competed. The
competitors were: Unnur Sigurðardóttir,
javelin champion and lceland's strongest
woman, Margrét Sigurðardóttir, an
lcelandic champion in body building,
Dagbjört Bladen aerobics teacher,
Bryndís Ólafsdóttir, a swimmer, Petrún
Jónsdóttir, sports instructor and Lillý
Viðarsdóttir, sports woman.
Some of the challenges they faced
were: to pull a car with their feet, to pull
a car with their hands, wheelbarrow dri-
ving, throwing a tire over a bar, to stack
haybails and a "death walk". The women
were enthusiastically cheered by onlook-
ers. Unnur Sigurðardóttir proved that she
was the strongest woman. She took the
lead early and held it throughout.
Bryndís Ólafsdóttir was second and
Petrún Jónsdóttir third.
Skyr Torte:
■ The Milk Producer's Corporation in
lceland is investigating the sale of a Skyr
Torte and other skyr desserts in the
U.S.A. The American company R.L.
Screiber has shown interest in buying a
ready made Skyr Torte and the British
^otel chain Forte have also expressed
'nterest in selling this product at their
restaurants.
V GUNNUR ISFELD >
Boardsailin«£ 94
Gámiá comes ofa^e
by Roger Newman
Oimli made the final
transition this summer
from a quiet Icelandic
fishing village into one
of the premier tourist
resorts in Manitoba.
The community of 4,300 on the
west shore of lake Winnipeg started
to change dramatically in 1991 after
Gimli’s main streets were re-land-
scaped and a 78-room luxury hotel
was opened on the waterfront.
Until then, Gimli was a sleepy
town which catered to summer cot-
tagers and commercial fishermen —
mostly of Icelandic descent — who
had plied the lake for more than a
century. But that era came to an end
with the new streetscaping and the
arrival of the Country Resort Hotel.
Once the transformation had taken
place, Gimli began to attract reams of
publicity, more tourists and a signifi-
cant number of new retail businesses.
Poor summer weather retarded
development a bit in 1992 and 1993,
but visitors poured into town this
year for major events from spring to
early fall. These events started with
the western premiers conference in
May and culminated with the World
Boardsailing Championships in late
August. In between there were the
annual Sun Country music festival,
the Sunfest Rock Festival and, of
course, Gimli’s traditional Icelandic
weekend, íslendingadagurinn.
The town’s emergence as 8n
important tourist destination has
been gratifying to local business peo-
ple. They say the crowds of up to
40,000 for major events have been
augmented by a steady stream of
casual visitors who come to Gimli for
one or two days.
“It has been a very good summer,
says Chris Neufeld, owner of Gimli’s
well-known Central Bakery. “We’ve
had lots of tourists because of the
better weather and the big events on
the weekends.”
Neufeld feels that Gimli is reaping
dividends from all the publicity it has
received in recent years. “We’ve
received a great deal of press,” he
says. “If you asked Manitobans to
name the towns, eight out of ten
would probably cite Gimli and their
own. More people are around
because Gimli has become a more
attractive destination for vacationers
wanting to do something for one or
two days.”
The bakery proprietor said Gimli
received an added boost this summer
from the World Boardsailing
Championships which ran for 10
days before the Labour Day weekend.
Although boardsailing — another
name for windsurfing — has only
been a sport for 25 years, more than
300 men and women competitors
from 40 countries came to Gimli for
the championships, which tumed out
to be ideal timing because many
weekday races had to be cancelled
due to an unusual lack of wind.
“The boardsailing gave us an extra
week of summer business after the
kids went back to school,” said
Neufeld. “That was a bonus because
we tend to be on almost a winter
footing after the schools open.”
Another plus was that the board
sailors and their fans liked what they
saw when they came to Gimli. Many
of them were amazed that the world’s
eleventh largest freshwater lake is in
the middle of the flat Canadian
prairies. They also had kind words
for Gimli residents who, in many
cases, housed the competitors, fed
them, drove them around and
manned the boats on the race cours-
es.
“I had a great time in Gimli.” said
Aaron Mclntosh, a 22 year-old boat
builder from Auckland, New
Zealand, who won the men’s gold
medal. “The people were extremely
friendly and I enjoyed the hospitali-
ty.”
The only disappointment of the
boardsailing was that Canadian
medal hopeful Murray McCaig, of
Winnipeg, finished way out of con-
tention in 53rd place. McCaig, who is
Icelandic on his mother’s side, hopes
to re-capture his world class form in
time to redeem himself at the 1996
Olympic Games in Atlanta.
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