Lögberg-Heimskringla - 22.05.1998, Qupperneq 2

2 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Friday, May 22, 1998
17th Vatnabyggð Þorrablót
Top: the Vatnabyggð choir. Above, left to right: Jón Örn Jónsson, Honourary Consul of
Iceland for Saskatchewan; INL President, Laurence Johnson; Baldvin Julianasson, a
regular Vatnabyggð Þorrablót entertainer.
By Bill Hancock and
Joan Eyolfson Cadham
really believe we have to know
our roots. We have gone from a
little community to a big com-
munity, but we have to maintain knowl-
edge of our beginnings,” said Joan
Eyolfson Cadham, President of the
Vatnabyggð Icelandic Club of Saskatch-
ewan and MC for the club’s 17th
Þorrablót.
The celebration of culture, friendship
and the end of winter was held at the
Wynyard Civic Centre on April 4, with
about 200 people in attendance.
“It’s a chance to celebrate being Ca-
nadian and being Icelandic, and we also
use the occasion to honour our pioneers,”
Eyolfson Cadham said.
The Vatnabyggð Þorrablót also at-
tracts community members who have no
Icelandic connection, but who come for
the food, the music, the entertainment, or
simply out of curiosity. Visitors from the
furthest away this year came from Eng-
land and South Africa.
As usual, Þorri’s table was heaped
high with rúllupylsa, Icelandic brown
bread, lifrarpylsa, sweet soup, skyr,
mysuostur, pancakes and vínarterta, as
well as a full array of Canadian salads,
cold meats, cheeses and squares. Follow-
ing Vatnabyggð’s tradition, there were
gallons of fresh cream for the skyr and
the coffee.
The Vatnabyggð Þorrablót has always
been a mixture of fine food, wide-
ranging culture and danceable music —
almost always offered by the Elfros
orchestra. True to fashion, this year’s
Þorrablót formal program was opened by
the Icelandic choir singing the Canadian,
Icelandic and American national anthems,
and a pair of Icelandic songs.
The official opening address was
given by Jón Öm Jónsson, Honorary Con-
sul of Iceland for Saskatchewan, the man
who knows that the finest speeches are
the shortest ones.
“Once again, we gather here in the
centre of Icelandic settlement in Saskatch-
ewan to celebrate our heritage and con-
firm our determination to preserve and
promote it,” he said.
“Since we last gathered, the good ship
earth has completed its ordained 365-day
circumnavigation of the sun and has again
tilted its axis towards the sun, bringing
the bright days and warmth of spring to
the cold climes of the northern hemi-
sphere. Mind you, this year, thanks to E1
Nino, we didn’t freeze our butts off.
“998 years ago, Leifur Eiriksson, or
Leif the Lucky, as he’s frequently called,
set sail from Greenland and, in due course,
discovered North America, or Vinland, as
he called it, indicating that he found
grapes for making wine when he came
ashore.
“Icelandic settlement around the year
1000, or the first millennium, was not
long-lived, but long enough to leave evi-
dence, in the form of ruins, to dispel any
claims by an upstart Italian to be the dis-
coverer of the New World.
“The next wave of Icelandic settlers
arrived in the new world — Nyja Heimi,
around 1875 — some 875 years after
Leifur Eiriksson stepped ashore. This time
they came to stay, to make a new life for
themselves in the New World.
“The first Icelandic families came to
Vatnabyggð in June 1882. They came to
the Fishing Lakes in search of pasture and
water for their livestock. Subsequent set-
tlements followed in Foam Lake, Kristnes,
Leslie, Mt. Hecla, Elfros, Mozart, Wyn-
yard, Kandahar and Dafoe. Combined,
they constituted the largest Icelandic set-
tlement outside of Iceland at that time.
“Here we are tonight, 116 years later,
celebrating the accomplishments of the
original settlers and you, their descend-
ents.
Continued on page 6
Smorgasbord ofEvents
Continued from page 1
planned with organizers in Greenland,
Newfoundland and the American Scan-
dinavian Foundation in New York for the
end of September or beginning of October
in the year 2000, or around the same time as
the Leifur Eiríksson Day in the U.S. This
celebration will take place in the brand
new home of the American Scandinavian
Foundation on Park Avenue in New York,
which is due to be completed by that time.
Other events on the agenda include
concert tours, musical events, a play, and
a puppet show intended mainly for the
young people. For those with literary in-
terests, there are plans for undertaking the
Engíish translation of recent works by Ice-
landic authors on both the history of the
Westem Icelanders and the Viking period.
There is also an enormously interesting
project that is currently being developed
with the use of interactive CD ROM tech-
nology. This project will provide a multi-
media presentation on the Viking discovery
of North America. Another very important
program, called Routes to the Roots, will be
run by the University of Iceland. (See pro-
gramme information on page 3.) This pro-
gram is designed to meet the needs of eth-
nic Icelanders or anyone else who is
interested in Iceland. It will consist of sum-
mer courses, the purpose of which is to
give an extremely good representation of
what Iceland is like — both by means of
lecturés at the University and travel through-
out the country. In addition to these programs
and others that are slated for inclusion in
the millennial celebrations, Ms. Sigurðar-
dóttir is involved in actively surveying
beyond the proposals that have come to the
commission for additional events which
could be brought to Canada and the U.S.
According to Benediktsson, most of
the millennial celebration projects will be
jointly funded by the countries involved.
As well, some film and documentary
projects are receiving support from funds
in Europe through the Scandinavian Tel-
evision Network, and some are to be
jointly produced with American and Ca-
nadian film industries through their re-
spective backers. Added to this is the an-
ticipated revenue from ticket sales. The
funding awarded by the Icelandic Govem-
ment to the millennial celebration events
provides only a modest starting point for
the financial support of the programs, al-
though it is very high by Iceland’s stand-
ards. “We are talking, here, about some-
thing like $700,000 U.S. dollars or
$1,000,000 Canadian,” Benediktsson ex-
plained, “but this is certainly not the whole
story. In order to be able to carry out the
Commission’s proposed activities, some-
thing like $5,000,000 are needed for 1999
and 2000.” As for financial support of the
concert tours, symphony and other musi-
cal tours, this will be partly based on what
can be funded directly, as well as the
amount of revenue that can be generated
through ticket sales and direct contribu-
tions from other sources.
Having described the projects slated
for the millennial celebrations themselves,
Benediktsson added that the year 2000
holds significance for Iceland in another
respect, and this will add to the country’s
festive atmosphere throughout the year. An
additional millennial anniversary will be
celebrated in Iceland in the year 2000 —
namely Iceland’s adoption of Christianity,
which took place at Þingvellir in the year
1000. A special committee has been es-
tablished to organize events in celebration
of this historic milestone. Furthermore,
Reykjavík has been chosen as one of Eu-
rope’s ‘Cultural Cities’ for the year 2000.
It is clear that there is much to look
forward to in the year 2000 — on both
sides of the Atlantic — with the celebra-
tion of those historic events which first tied
our countries together and which now
promise to help further strengthen these
ties. □ (- G.I.)
Lögberg
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