Árdís - 01.01.1949, Page 40

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ÁRDÍ S
Winnipeg’s Seventy-fifth Anniversary
Thousands of visitors from all parts of Canada and United
States came to Winnipeg the week of June 5-11 of this year to join
with its citizens and celebrate the 75th anniversary of this city.
Since its incorporation as a city in 1873, Winnipeg, with less
than 2000 inhabitants and covering a few acres of low-lying
prairie, at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, has
grown to a metropolis of miles of landscaped streets, fine resi-
dential distripts, innumerable modern industrial plants and
buildings, institutions of culture, towering churches, beautiful
public parks and a population of 320,000.
Winnipeg has been called the most cosmopolitan city in
Canada. This may be attributed in large part to its geographical
location, midway from the east coast to the Pacific and considered
the gateway to the vast prairie agricultural area to the west.
Originally settled by English, Scots and French and followed by
people from every country in Europe who came to settle the
prairies. Many came to live in Winnipeg where each ethnic group
has contributed to Canadian life the cultural heritage of its race.
As Winnipeg was slowly emerging from its first muddy ox-
trails and oft-flooded prairie, as a city in the early seventies, our
first group of brave adventurous people from lceland arrived to
face the struggles and hardships of pioneer life in rural districts
and in Winnipeg. We may with pride say that those first pioneer
Icelanders that settled in Winnipeg, gave generously of toil and
courageously surmounted the stress that beset them as strangers
in a strange land. They contributed the best they had to give —
good citizenship in its finest form.
Today the descendants of these brave and patient people may
be found in all the city’s departments of administration, in aíl
professions and in all vocations of private enterprise. And from the
very beginning of their years in this city, the Icelandic population
has retained, developed and contributed generously of their cultural
heritage brought from their homeland.
One of the attractive features in the six day program of
celebration was a three-mile parade of ethnic groups, military
service groups, industrial and other organizations. Many attractive
floats were in this parade and citizens of Icelandic origin con-