Lögberg-Heimskringla - 20.08.1999, Blaðsíða 3

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 20. ágúst 1999 • 3
President Grímsson’s visit to Canada was modified to include a briefstop in Winnipeg. Above, he and his daughter Dalla were received at the home oflcelandic Consul
Svavar Gestsson and met with local government leaders and dignitaries. pi,oio.- j<m Emars. Gmiafsson
President Grímsson visits Canada
Joan Eyolfson Cadham
Vatnabyggd, SK
£ already feel that we are here
I at home with you and I am sure
Awe will have a splendid day
together,” Icelandic President Ólafur
Ragnar Grímsson told the surprisingly
large crowd who had gathered at the
Community Hall on July 29 for a week-
day two-hour luncheon with the first
head of state of a foreign country to visit
Foam Lake.
The last time an Icelandic President
toured the Vatnabyggd area (roughly
from Dafoe to east of Foam Lake), was
on Sept. 16, 1961, when President and
Mrs. Asgeir Asgeirsson were driven to
Wynyard for a three-hour visit. In 1989,
then-President Vigdís Finnbogadóttir
paid a brief visit to Regina and members
of the local Icelandic Club bussed to the
city for a reception.
“I can assure you it will not be thir-
ty years before the President of Iceland
comes here again because there is in my
country a clear desire to cultivate and
enhance the ties with you and your fam-
ilies, the descendants of the Icelandic
settlers here one hundred years ago,”
President Grímsson said at the wind-up
dinner in Wynyard.
“We in Iceland see the settlement in
Canada not only as a part of Canadian
history but also our own history because
in those decades one hundred years ago,
Iceland was struggling to become an
independent nation,” the President said
during his stop at the memorial to
Icelandic pioneers in Elfros. “People
who settled here continued to be
involved in many ways, contributing to
Icelandic society and contributing to
Icelandic culture, so I come here on a
pilgrimage joumey to bring you the
heartfelt thanks of my people and to
promise you that there is now in Iceland
a very strong determination to enhance
our relationship and to extend it in the
new century and to bring the Icelandic
community, wherever you live and what-
ever you might be, together.”
President Grímsson spent a day in
the Vatnabyggd area, with stops in
Elfros, Foam Lake, Bob Eyolfson’s
farm, Wynyard, and Kandahar. He was
accompanied by his daughter, Dalla, by
Consul General, Svavar Gestsson and
his wife, Guðrún Agústsdóttir, by the
Honorary Consul of Iceland in
Saskatchewan, Jón Örn Jónsson, and by
his Secretary General and his Special
Assistant, Robert Trausti Amason and
Örnólfur Thorsson. The visit also attract-
ed the attention of CBC radio, GX94 and
one other commercial radio station and a
CTV team of cameraman and reporter.
The visit was arranged by Jón Örn
Jónsson and organized by , the
Vatnabyggd Icelandic Club under the
guidance of provincial and federal proto-
col officers and security. The President
made three stops in Canada—in Alberta,
Saskatchewan, and Manitoba—on his
way to August 2 celebrations in
Mountain, ND. The province of
Saskatchewan hosted meetings and din-
ner at Govemment House in Regina on
July 28 and provided two aircraft for the
trip to and from Wynyard (Intemational)
aiiport as well as cars and drivers for the
official party and Vatnabyggd Club
member escorts.
The first stop, at the Icelandic monu-
ment in Elfros, clearly set the tone for
the visit, said Vatnabyggd Club execu-
tive members. In each of his speeches,
the President described how moved he
was by the statue which depicts a young
Icelandic couple in period costume. She
is seated, knitting. He is standing, read-
ing to her.
“The Icelandic settlers who came
here brought themselves and their chil-
dren but they also brought their books
and their books were their most precious
possessions,” he said. “In the hard
Canadian winters they were able to read
the Icelandic books that gave them the
spirit, the courage and the endurance to
survive.”
The President described the pioneer
memorial as “the statue of the reading
sessions.” He also commended Club
members for “having the names of the
settlers put here for everyone to see.”
The names of the pioneers are listed on
an information board with a map of the
area and a brief history of the early
Icelanders. During the stop at Elfros,
members of the official party greeted
about two hundred people who had come
from across Saskatchewan for the event,
and the President asked people to point
out their family names to him.
The President was curious about the
naming of Elfros. He suggested that it
was quite common in poetic language to
call a river “Elfur.” Therefore, he said,
the word “Elfros” could mean “a town
(or area) with a river and roses.”
Elfros R.M. Reeve Evans
Thordarson presented the President
Please see President on page 8
nnn Mt' rnrrtk hmi þihh w nm wi ww mn n htm wi tk wi tm