Lögberg-Heimskringla - 20.04.2001, Page 2

2 * Lögberg-Heimskringla » Friday 20 April 2001
Editorials
Lillian Vilborg
Managing Editor
WlNNIPEG, MB
During the Páll Guðmunðsson
lecture in March, Bill Holm
mused that Icelanders were
40% Norwegian, 40% Irish, and 20%
everything and anything else. Research
in Iceland in recent years confirms that
the predominant blood type there is
more closely aligned to that in the
British Isles than Norway. In fact, I am
informed that recent DNA research
shows that 62% of Icelandic women are
Celtic in their genetic makeup.
Despite my grandfather’s saying
“The Scots and the Icelanders are very
closely related,” when I brought my
husband-to-be to meet him and my
grandmother; despite my father’s claim
that there was an “Irish princess” in his
family tree; and Bill Holm’s comment
notwithstanding, there is still a leaning
toward the idea of “purity” amongst
Icelanders and people of Icelandic
descent in North America. Purity of the
bloodline. There’s a certain amazement
in being a 100 per center after four gen-
erations in Canada—and pride.
In Canada, from the beginning,
young Icelandic men and women met,
feel in love with, and married Canadians
from other cultures—“the English”—
Scots, Irish, Welsh, English —French,
Métis, aboriginal, Ukrainian, and many
others. We began this process 125 years
ago, so that now most of us are one half,
one quarter, one eighth Icelandic.
Iceland is facing this same situation
now, as people from away view it as a
safe and welcoming place to live.
Perhaps it began with the British and
American soldiers during the Second
World War, or those Europeans who
sought safe haven in the thirties, but
now there are refugees there from
Vietnam and Yugoslavia, immigrants
from China, Thailand, the Philippines,
eastem Europe, Europe, Britain, North
America, Japan, South America. I had a
server in a restaurant there who looked
like he was from India, so I asked him
“Hvaðan ert þú?” He replied
“Hafnarfjörður.” He was Icelandic. I
nearly died of embarassment.
So, I wonder what will a “pure”
Icelander be? How many drops of
Icelandic blood will make an Icelander,
whether in the New World or Old?
Letters to the Editor jjp
Logbergians/Heimskringlasts (???),
I’ve been asked about the availabil-
ity of Icelandic Language Tapes and
don’t have the answer. Can you help ?
Maybe I’ve missed some L-H
information on this; I realize there have
been articles recently on various groups
of language leamers here and there.
Maybe widespread interest has been
sparked. In any case,it might be a good
idea to run a piece on different
resources ( or re-mn) as people need to
be reminded and/or jogged. Case in
point!!
Happy Spring!
Regards,
Thordis Gutnick
Calgary, AB
Editor’s note: the BC Club offers tapes,
and the Tergesen ad in the Travel issue
featured a new book. We ’ll see what we
can find out.
MESSUBOÐ
Fyrsta Lúterska
Kirkja
Pastor Michael Kurtz
10:30 a.m. The Service
First Lutheran Church
580 Victor St., Winnipeg
R3G 1R2 Ph. 772-7444
Dear Lillian:
Although I try to keep opinions to
myself, especially when they may only
serve to strengthen opposition, I feel I
must address the comments that have
been made about discontinuing the
story “íslensk kona: Portrait of Ásdís
Anderson” by Katrina Koven. Let me
make my position clear; Ásdís is my
amma and Katrina is my cousin.
Without quoting anyone specifically,
the comments spoke of the story having
gone on too long. Perhaps, if pressed to
verbalize my opinion about another
story by another author, I might agree
that readers have had a good taste of an
emerging author’s story of the early life
of an Icelandic-Canadian woman, and
that it’s time for something new to
grace these pages. But I disagree.
My amma Ásdís is an inspiration to
her family, her children, grandchildren,
and great-grandchildren. She is a
sharp-minded, modern-thinking
woman in her mid-80s. She experi-
enced what many women in rural
Canada did in the early twentieth cen-
tury—immigrant parents, a new lan-
guage, surviving off the land, a lack of
modern-day resources, successfully
raising a family, hardships and joys that
I can only imagine. Hardships and joys
that most of her immediate family
would never know had they not been
written down.
Minnist
BETEL
í ERFÐASKRÁM YÐAR
The requests to discontinue this
story did not take into account the per-
son they would most aífect. How could
they? The people who made them don’t
know my amma. But perhaps we all
need to consider the recipient of our
opinions. In this case, she is a woman
willing to share her life story. I think
we need more of such people.
Erla Anderson
Edmonton, AB
Editor’s note: “íslensk kona” will run
monthly in our larger issues.
***
To the Editor:
Re L-H, 30 mars, 2001
I really enjoy what you have been
doing with the paper. However, I read a
glaring mistake that a Canadian-based
paper should not have made. In the arti-
cle “Iceland’s Minister of Education
visits Ottawa” you state: “he was rec-
ognized by the Speaker of the House of
Representatives on March 20.” I got
confused. Was he in the US or Canada?
Canada has a House of Commons, the
US has a House of Representatives. We
can excuse foreign correspondents for
their lack of understanding of our par-
liamentary system, but we cannot
excuse ourselves for such errors.
Elva Simundsson
Winnipeg, MB
Editor’s note: Whoops! You’re right.
We should NOT have made this mis-
take. Our apologies.

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