Lögberg-Heimskringla - 25.03.2005, Blaðsíða 2

2 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • Friday 25 March 2005
MISSIOX
Astronaut Bjarni Tryggvason is well known
in Canada. He was seven years old when he
moved with his family from lceland to Canada.
His father, Svavar Tryggvason, was 37 years
old at the time and has now lived in Canada for
just over half a century. Steinþór Guðbjartsson
visited the grand old man in Vancouver, BC.
On April 24 Svavar
Tryggvason, bom in
Reykjavík, Iceland in
1916, will be 89 years old. He
carries his age well and there is
a special spirit of life in his eyes.
The same spirit he had when he
was among the founders of the
Icelandic union Eining in 1932,
and 50 years later when he was
made an honorary member of
the union.
“I retired more than 20
years ago. However, the au-
thorities in Iceland think that
I eam more money with every
year and estimated that my in-
come was $6,000 more in 2004
than the previous year,” he says,
explaining why his pension has
been cut short. “I used to get
$250 Canadian a month in pen-
sion from Iceland, but a year
ago it was cut down to about
$115 dollars. I also used to get
about $40 or $30 after tax as a
special Christmas treat, but that
was completely cut off before
the last Christmas. This is be-
yond my understanding.”
Never too late
to make it better
When Svavar was 37 years
old, he decided to move to
Canada with his wife Sveinb-
jörg Haraldsdóttir and their six
children. He was a fisherman
and was not happy with his sal-
ary. “In 1953 the first cod war
[between Iceland and Great
J
Britain] was going on and fish-
ermen on the trawlers had little
income. I had a big family —
there were eight of us — and
when the only option was to
move into barracks I said no,
I’ll go somewhere else. The Ca-
nadian authorities said I had too
big a family, I could not support
it in Canada, and they were not
going to allow me to enter the
country. At that time they paid
90 cents an hour in Halifax and
I said that all I needed was a
fisherman’s job on a trawler. I
was stubbom and it paid off. I
was hired on a trawler for six
months and went to Nova Sco-
tia. We lived there for a year and
a half and life was much easier
than in Iceland. We paid $25
dollars a month for renting a
good apartment and everything
cost next to nothing. I did not
even have to pay taxes.”
Difficult times
Life was hard in Iceland
when Svavar was growing up.
His father lost one of his legs
in an accident when Svavar was
seven years old and the family
was moved to the northem part
of Iceland. At the age of 19,
Svavar came back to Reykjavík
to enter the' Commercial Col-
lege of Iceland. “I was on a her-
ring boat during the summer and
since there was no herring I had
no money,” he recalls. “Some-
how I managed, and soon I was
' ■ •- „ -

THE ICELANDICS
hnve arrived in the Girnli area
lcelandic sheep that Is!
PHOTO: STEINÞÓR GUÐBJARTSSON
Svavar Tryggvason supported his son Bjarni’s decision to continue working as an astronaut,
even in the face of the destruction of the Challenger space shuttle in 1986.
back at sea, the catch was good
and I could pay for my educa-
tion.”
Many a fisherman has done
well fishing halibut off Alaska,
and the halibut was one of the
reasons that Svavar went with
his family to the west coast.
“Canadian fishermen did not
really like foreigners on the
trawlers and because of the at-
mosphere, I and Sigmar Sigurb-
jömsson had talked about going
back to Iceland. First we wanted
to go west and look into fishing
halibut. We liked what we saw
and stayed.”
On their way to the west
coast, they stopped in Winnipeg
to get some information. “We
met Dr. Finnbogi Guðmunds-
son, then head of the Depart-
ment of Icelandic at the Univer-
sity of Manitoba. He arranged a
supper for us and afterwards we
played bridge with the fourth
man from Saskatchewan. The
woman of the house was my
partner and we got really good

hands. We started bidding and
after a few bids she said ‘six
hearts.’ It was up to me to go
to seven. I have always wanted
to know my next step and said
‘pass.’ I played and got all the
tricks. The woman got really
mad, threw all the cards on the
floor and went to bed.”
Svavar’s first job in Van-
couver was at the harbour,
where he worked for about five
years. “At that time, you had to
be a Canadian citizen to get a
licence to fish the salmon. Fur-
thermore, you only got paid
half the salary during the first
summer when fishing halibut,
but I went halibut fishing every
summer when working at the
harbour.”
Not afraid of danger
Danger has been a part of
Svavar’s life. He was a fisher-
man during the Second World
War and says that they had no
protection. “We were just like
sitting ducks, either you made
it or didn’t. I guess the chance
of making it was about 50 per
cent. I was lucky year after year.
Most of my crew members are
in the sea. After all seven crew
members of the space shuttle
Challenger died in the destruc-
tion of the shuttle in 1986, I
was asked if I would not forbid
Bjami to go into space. I said
no, because people die on every
occasion; when going to the
North Pole, to the South Pole,
on the bus, in the car, walking
on the street, in a war.”
After moving to Canada,
Svavar and Sveinbjörg had one
more child. “We had to get to
Vancouver to get the children
into a university, and that was
the main reason why we went
west,” Svavar says.
All the children got a good
education and made a good liv-
ing. All but one are still alive.
Of the seven children, astronaut
Bjarni Tryggvason is the most
famous. “He did not play like
other children, but spent his
time making airplanes,” Svavar
recalls. “I encouraged him to
leam to fly and I was very proud
when he took off into space in
1997. His siblings were down
in Florida but I was too sick to
go. I stayed here at home and
watched the big event on TV. I
had a beer in my hand and cried
when he took off. The mission
was completed.”
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