Lögberg-Heimskringla - 20.08.1999, Blaðsíða 4

4 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Friday 20 August 1999
Navigating In Dangerous Waters
The Bogus “Republic” ofNew Iceland
Nelson Gerrard
Historian,
lcelandic National
League
JHE POWER OF
words, Ice-
landers long
believed, was such
that the spoken word
could be used not
only to conjure up
wraiths (“draugar”) and zombies (“upp-
vakningar”), but to “chant down”
(“kveða niður”) malevolent spirits—
putting them to rest as effectively as if a
sharp stake or a silver bullet had been
employed. Ghosts and the living dead,
it was held, otherwise had a “shelf life”
of nine generations once they had been
conjured. During the first three genera-
tions they grew stronger and more
active; during the next three, they main-
tained their power; and during the last
three they went into decline, fading and
eventually disappearing.
Although some of these legendary
conjurations are rumoured to have fol-
lowed our ancestors here to North
America—“Thorgeir’s Boli” and
“írafell’s Móri” among them—most
have expired by now, finding their long-
overdue rest. In more recent times,
however, some new manifestations
have begun raising their ill-conceived
heads in our midst, and it is one such
persistent and potentially troublesome
apparition that I would like to exorcise
here and now.
This irksome manifestation of dubi-
ous parentage, recently adopted by
some within our community, is the pro-
liferate use of the phrases “The
Republic of New Iceland” and “The
Twelve-Year Republic.” Some would
argue that these are “catchy phrases”
which are eífective “hooks” for gaining
public attention. I would reason that the
use of the word “republic” in this con-
text is not only gratuitous and mislead-
ing, but historically and semantically
inaccurate, misrepresentative of the
spirit and intelligence of the founding
fathers of New Iceland, disrespectful to
the memory of our pioneers, demeaning
to our community, and highly inappro-
priate in the contemporary context of
Canadian multiculturalism.
That this application of the word
“republic” in reference to the New
Iceland settlement is inaccurate is
quickly established by consulting any
reliable historical work. Scholars such
as Wilhelm Kristjanson, for example, in
his ground-breaking history entitled
The Icelandic People in Manitoba: A
Manitoba Saga, never uses this
phrase—for good reason. New Iceland
was not a republic—it was not, nor was
it ever conceived of being, a politically
independent sovereign state, as strongly
denoted by the word “republic.”
Although New Iceland was initially
beyond the boundaries of the “postage
stamp province” of Manitoba as it then
existed, this settlement was established
within the fully Canadian context of the
Northwest Territory and the federal
District of Keewatin, upon passage of
an order in council by the Canadian
govemment in Ottawa, subject tó all
Canadian federal laws and statutes, and
directly under the jurisdiction of both
the Govemor General of Canada and
the Lieutenant Govemor of Manitoba.
New Iceland was technically a federal
reserve as opposed to a republic—with
limited authority to organize a local
council and administer local affairs—
but in light of the strong connotations of
the word “reserve” in contemporary
Canada, New Iceland could more aptly
be termed a settlement, a territory, even
a colony. It is most suitably referred to,
however, simply as New Iceland—a
strongly resonant but politically neutral
term which carries little if any inappro-
priate baggage, yet still reflects the cul-
tural and logistical vision of the settle-
ment’s founders one hundred twenty-
five years ago. Wilhelm Kristjanson’s
book is not the only or the ultimate
source on this historical phenomenon—
as there is abundant archival material
extant—but it is the most accessible and
comprehensive work in English for
anyone wishing to get acquainted with
the facts of this matter.
That those now using this phrase
indiscriminately are apparently not in
full possession of the facts and are not
overly concerned with such petty
details as historical accuracy is disturb-
ing for more reasons than one. The use
of the term “republic” is not only inac-
curate—it creates misleading notions
about the intentions and integrity of our
founding fathers and impugns their
honour and their rightful place in
Canadian history. Were the founders of
New Iceland actually just political
opportunists who came here to establish
their own foreign and politically sover-
eign state, while at the same time
accepting the free land and largesse of
the Canadian Government? Did they in
fact attempt to set up a foreign political
entity, only later “becoming part of
Canada” and “relinquishing their auton-
omy” when New Iceland was aborted
into an enlarged Province of Manitoba
in 1881 (or 1887 as some claim)? Were
they, in short, the sort of immigrants
many Canadians today justifiably
resent—zealots who bring their politi-
cal baggage to Canada and impose for-
eign agendas and demands on their host
country while accepting Canada’s eco-
nomic and democratic benefits?
They were not. The leaders of New
Iceland—principally Sigtryggur
Jónasson, John Taylor, and Friðjón
Friðriksson, greatly to their credit—
were astute visionaries who were very
much in possession of the facts and in
tune with the political realities of
Canada. They readily acknowledged
both their own proper place within this
Canadian context and their duties and
responsibilities as new Canadian citi-
zens and British subjects. The pages of
Framfari, published in New Iceland
from 1877 to 1880, provide adequate
proof of this. The founders of New
Iceland—while seeking cultural and
linguistic viability—foresaw a harmo-
nious co-existence of cultures within
this new country, and at no time did
they ever aspire to foreign national sta-
tus within or without the formal bound-
aries of Manitoba or Canada—as erro-
neously implied by the word republic.
An emphasis on good citizenship
and participatory democracy existed in
New Iceland from the beginning, and
the immediate founding of an English
school at Gimli during the winter of
1875-76 demonstrated the settlers’
awareness and acknowledgement of
both the practicalities and responsibili-
ties of Canadian citizenship. Upon vis-
iting New Iceland in 1877, Lord
Dufferin, Governor General of
Please see Navigating on page II
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