Lögberg-Heimskringla - 21.10.2005, Blaðsíða 10

10 • Lögberg-Heimskringla« Friday 21 October 2005
Tasting Iceland in North America
Icelandic author suprised, intrigued on latest visit
Recently Guðbergur Bergsson
returned home after a well-re-
ceived lecture tour in the lcelandic
communities in Canada. Steinþór
Guðbjartsson spoke with the writ-
er about his trip.
PHOTO: MORQUNBLAÐIÐ / EINAR FALUR
Guðbergur Bergsson is a prolific Icelandic writer and cultural thinker.
This was Guðbergur Bergs-
son’s first trip to Canada.
It may be said that the
joumey was well-prepared for,
as he intended it a year ago, but
was tumed back upon arrival at
the airportLeifsstöð. New US
laws regarding passports had
taken effect the day before, and
as he did not have the right pa-
pers he was told that he might
not be allowed into the US when
arriving in Minneapolis or risk
not being allowed to return to
the US. He chose not to take that
chance, but recently visited Ice-
landic settlements in Manitoba
and Alberta.
Some say that first impres-
sions.of a land and its people are
different from those in return
visits. Earlier this year, a Cana-
dian artist of Icelandic descent I
spoke to said that she wanted to
write a book about her first visit
to Iceland and put the trip into
a slide show, because the impact
would not be repeated. Guðber-
gur Bergsson took different pic-
tures during his first journey to
Canadian Icelandic settlements.
Distance makes
the mountains blue
Guðbergur Bergsson knew
much about the Icelandic com-
munity in Canada before he went
on his good trip. Nevertheless he
was surprised by many things. “I
have never before been to Cana-
da and it follows that this would
be an interesting trip, because I
thought that it would be com-
pletely different,” he says.
The distance from Stephan
G. Stephansson House to the
Rocky Mountains was one of
the most surprising things. “I
thought Stephan G. Stephansson
House was right by the Rockies,”
he says, after having leamed that
from Markerville south to Cal-
gary it was a two-hour drive (at
120 km an hour) and the same
again west to the Rockies. And
then you still have to climb up
the mountains. From the house
of the Rocky Mountain poet, he
nevertheless saw the mountains
or more accurately a strip be-
cause it had snowed. “This was
the reason I could see the moun-
tains,” he says.
The distance between
Stephan G. Stephansson House
to the Rockies is deeply on
Guðbergur’s mind. “Icelanders
falsify reality, they don’t know
how to distinguish actuality and
fantasy and so they muddle them
together,” he says of the sobri-
quet “Rocky Mountain Poet,”
which Icelanders bestowed upon
Stephan G. Stephansson.
The dreamland
As do most other Icelandic
tourists in Manitoba, Guðbergur
went to Icelandic settlements in
the province and visited, among
other places, Arborg and Hecla
Island. “I have never seen so
many Icelandic flags as I did
there, flapping in front of hous-
es,” he says. “I was told that flag
laws in Canada were different
than those in Iceland. The flags
may be out all day.”
Much has been written about
the emigrants and Guðbergur
says he had different ideas about
them. It’s been said of the west
that those who went to Canada
likely went to the promised land
and intended to build there a
new country. They had com-
merce only with Icelanders and
didn’t learn English priör to go-
ing to school. “They didn’t take
an Icelandic construction plan,
because the house layout is com-
pletely different,” he says, “But
then again, the churches are typ-
ical Icelandic wood churches. I
found this very interesting.”
Guðbergur thought Stephan
G. Stephansson’s house would
be large and fine, but soon real-
ized it was a small, particularly
the rooms. “It’s barely possible
to tum around in there,” he says.
“The walls don’t reach the ceil-
ing, so the heat in the kitchen
goes through the air and thus
heats the the rooms. Later, he
built by his house on a similar
level the surrounding buildings
around 1930, outbuildings, shed
by shed.”
Icelandic churches are in
many places in North America.
Guðbergur saw a few of them and
noticed that they were very poor
and humble. “The only omament
was a particularly handwritten in
calligraphy Lord’s Prayer, and
then some kind of embroidery
that women had donated to the
church,” says Guðbergur. “This
is a little like churches here in
Iceland but even more humble.
This Icelandic society was rather
impoverished.”
Guðbergur says he noticed
that those who have preserved
the Icelandic language speak
with variant pronunciations and
have “dative sickness” (the use
of dative case instead of accusa-
tive). That indicates that people
generally speak with variant
pronunciations here in Iceland
but not just in particular areas,
as has been claimed.
Another thing that drew his
attention was the fact that in
the French-speaking part of the
country, French is spoken; but
that Icelanders were too few to
form an Icelandic, independent
state. “There were not that many
in order to be abie to create this
particular utopia, or a little Ice-
land,” he says. “When they were
not able to create this promised
land, Iceland became the ideal
country in their minds. That ac-
tually turned it around but they
did not return to Iceland, the
ideal country.”
Keepiiig the old traditions
Keeping various old tradi-
tions also caught Guðbergur’s
attention. “These elderly wom-
en clap. their legs in a way that
women in Iceland no longer
do,” says Guðbergur. “And then
the elderly men are flirting on a
level that would not be tolerated
here. It is what old men did —
feeling. It’s just a need to touch
that has been exterminated here
in Iceland.”
Guðbergur also found it
interesting to become familiar
with the custom of Icelandic
food and lodgings. “They make
a special dishes that do not ex-
ist in Iceland and it’s a little of
everything. It’s skyr and it’s rúl-
lupylsa and it’s a certain kind of
brown or rye bread and it’s harð-
fiskur. On one such dinner plate
you get a taste of everything in
Iceland. Icelanders have made
þorramatur and it is in Iceland
that you get taste buds.”
An extremely large amount
of newspapers, magazines and
books have been published in
Icelandic in Manitoba. Among
them is an Icelandic translation
of a book by Selma Lagerlöf.
Guðbergur has read it. “They
didn’t recognize it in the Icelan-
dic library,” he says, referring to
the Icelandic Collection at the
University of Manitoba in Win-
nipeg. “When I came to Arborg
I was told that there would be
book-rooms that some Iceland-
ers had donated, and here was
this book by Selma Lagerlöf,” he
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