Lögberg-Heimskringla - 13.12.2002, Qupperneq 5

Lögberg-Heimskringla • 6 Desember 2002 • page 5
FRÉTTIR • NEWS
A Warm Embrace
Gerry Einarson, President of The Friends of Iceland in
Ottawa presents Bill Valgardson
W.D. Valgardson
VlCTORIA, BC
Last weekend I was inducted
into The Royal Society of
Canada. You can read about
how all that works in many
other places. What I want to tell
you about is the Icelandic
Canadian community and what
it means to be part of that com-
munity.
After I received a letter
saying that I'd been elected to
The Royal Society, I wrote to
Gerry Einarsson, the president
of The Friends of Iceland. TFI
is the Ottawa INL chapter. It
has fifty-eight members and is
eight months old. However, it is
made up of members of a com-
munity that has a tradition of
hospitality and support that
goes back more than a hundred
years. I asked, when I wrote to
Gerry, whether there were any
events taking place during the
time I was going to be in
Ottawa. If there were, then I
wanted to attend.
There weren't any events
planned at the moment he said
but, shortly, there would be. He
was certainly right about that. I
had expected to slip into
Ottawa, attend the Royal
Society ceremony, perhaps
have coffee with some mem-
bers of the Friends of Iceland,
then slip away again. However,
when you are part of the
Icelandic Canadian community,
pride in heritage and accom-
plishment makes things happen.
When I arrived in Ottawa,
Gerry was waiting for me in the
hotel lobby. After seven hours
on West Jet and three bags of
pretzels, I was as famished as
someone who'd made a seven
slipper trek through the moun-
tains. Gerry whisked me off to a
pub for supper.
The next day he picked me
up, took me sightseeing, show-
ing me the prime minister's res-
idence, the Govemor General's
property, an overview of the
city and spent a few hours with
me at the museum. After a
quick look at the handsome
sculpture given to Canada by
Iceland that stands in the foyer
of the National Archives, we
went to Gerry's. He and his
wife, Vikki, provided me with
supper and good conversation.
The next day I took a taxi
to Rideau Hall. There were
sixty-eight of us being inducted.
However, I was the only person
who had, as a guest, an ambas-
sador. In spite of his hectic
schedule, Ambassador Hjálmar
W. Hannesson, had made time
to attend the ceremony. After
the ceremony, he joined me in
the reception room.
That night Gerry attended
the official banquet with me.
The next afternoon
Ambassador Hannesson and his
wife, Anna Birgis, held a recep-
tion to celebrate my investiture.
As more and more guests
arrived, I wondered how many
recently inducted members had
a community gathering to cele-
brate the success of one of their
members. Four of those guests
— Evelyn Magnusson Trites,
Darla McKay, Carole McGirr,
Gail Einarson McCleery —
drove all the way from Toronto
to attend. Now, that is solidaiity.
When I made a short
speech of thanks, I emphasized
how important being part of the
Icelandic Canadian community
has been for me. The communi-
ty has made it easy for me to be
a writer. When I first started
writing, my confidence was
boosted with publications in
The Icelandic Canadian and
Lögberg-Heimskringla.
Although I was very young, I
was appointed to the board of
The Icelandic Canadian and
was elected to the executive of
The Icelandic Canadian Club of
Winnipeg. When my first book,
Bloodflowers, was published,
the community responded not
just with praise but with their
pocket books. I told the guests
that after discovering how diffi-
cult it was to get Canadian
books into bookstores in
Winnipeg, I set up a table in
front of Olson's fish shed and
arranged a display of my books.
In summer, the foot of the Gimli
dock is a busy place. My first
customer—blessings upon her—
stopped at the table. As we
spoke, in what I thought was an
act of nervous tidiness, she
piled up all the books. Finally,
she said I'd like to buy this. By
"this" I thought she meant a
copy of Bloodflowers. "No, no,"
she said, "this", indicating all
the books on the table. In that
moment I went from being ter-
ribly nervous to feeling elated
and self-confident. Not only
had I made a sale, I'd made a
whopper of a sale. That incident
was an indicator of what would
follow in the months and years
ahead.
It is not just Icelandic
Canadians, of course, but
Icelanders as well. Although
publishing is expensive in
Iceland and the population
small, Bloodflowers has been
Fyrsti starfsmaður Alcoa á íslandi
First worker for Alcoa in Iceland
ALCOA, is planning to build
an aluminum plant in
ReyðarfjÖrður. The company has
hired a staff person in Iceland
and opened an office in
Reykjavík in November. Anna
Heiða Pálsdóttir began working
for the company on the lst of
November 2002. She said that
during the next weeks and
months Alcoa plans to send
many staff to Iceland to finalize
the agreement for building the
aluminum plant. That is the rea-
son why the company decided to
open an office in Iceland and to
hire an office manager. She said minum plant in Reyðarfjörður by
that her function is to be a link opening an office in Reykjavík
between Alcoa and Iceland, to already though the agreement
manage the office and organize
trips, etc.
Anna said that Alcoa is "a
very good company. I have
acquainted myself with their
work... especially their environ-
mental policy, where their objec-
tives are ambitious. For instance
they plan to decrease green house
gases by 25% in the next four
years... It is to be a model alu-
minum plant that they can be
proud of all over the world
because of the successful
decrease in pollution." Anna said
that Alcoa has shown that they
are serious about building an alu-
Photo courtesy of Morgunblaðið
Anna Heiða Pálsdóttir
Heimur Travel
heirnur Publica,i°ns
www.heimur.is/world
www.icelandreview.com
Heimur publishes
over 900,000
copies of travel
magazines and
brochures per year.
Now Available
on the Internet
published as a monograph, The
Girl With the Botticelli Face
and Thor have also been trans-
lated and published.
In his speech Ambassador
Hannesson was generous in his
praise. However, tha.t praise
belongs as much to the
Icelandic Canadian community
as to me. For talent to flower, it
needs opportunity and support.
That support has been there
ever since I began writing. The
proof of that support is in the
success of many writers in the
Icelandic Canadian community.
Just off the top of my head, I
think of David Amason,
Kristjana Gunnars, Betty Jane
Wylie, Martha Brooks. There
are many others and there will
continue to be many others. We
are all part of a tradition started
by the Icelandic immigrants,
who in spite of their poverty,
brought books with them.
On my last evening in
Ottawa a dozen members of the
Friends of Iceland joined by
Gail Einarson-McCleery of the
Toronto club treated me to sup-
per. During the supper, they
presented me with a handsome
medal.
I'm sure that being induct-
ed into The Royal Society was
an important event for every
one of the inductees. However,
the support of the Icelandic and
Icelandic-Canadian communi-
ties made this an event never to
be forgotten. Although it was
snowing and cold in Ottawa, I
was aware that I was being held
in a warm embrace.
Ambassador Hjálmar W.
Hanneson's speech can be seen at
the Embassy's website www.ice-
land.ca
hasn't been finalized.
Information from Morgunblaðið,
Á. H.
uínxxtn
Gleðilegjól
Gott ogfarsælt komandi ár
r
ýrom
Dr. Ken Thorlakson
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