Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.01.2008, Page 4

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Dreams and facts about the west
4 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • 15 January 2008
Lögberg-
Heimskringla
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COLUMNISTS
Björk Bjarnadóttir
Joan Eyolfson Cadham
Helga Hilmisdóttir
Heather Neale
Kristin Olafson-Jenkyns
Mykael Sopher
Caelum Vatnsdal
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Walter Sopher, The Honourable
Kris Stefanson, Brian Tomasson
REGIONAL REPRESENTATIVES:
• BC: Norma Guttormsson
• CALGARY: Linda Bjarnason
• EDMONTON: Walter Sopher
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Heimskringla stofnað 14. janúar 1886
Lögberg stofnað 9. september 1888
Sameinuð 1959
For decades I have thought about doing crazy things and have actually done a
few.
Being an adventurous sev-
en- or eight-year-old boy in el-
ementary school in Reykjavík,
Iceland, I thought that after
having sailed with a freighter
from Reykjavík to the West-
fjords to spend a summer at a
farm I was experienced enough
to be a captain on my own ship
and sail to Greenland.
I told my friend Svavar that
he would be the steersman and
one afternoon after school in
the fall we left the shore in a
tub in the west end of Reyk-
javík. There were no oars and
the tub did not hold any water.
We did not realize that until we
were out among the waves hit-
ting the rocks at the seashore,
but soon enough to make it on
foot back to land, just beneath
the sheds of the fishermen fish-
ing lumpfish.
Behind the sheds we no-
ticed the nanny who looked
after my little sister and me
while Mom was teaching, and
she was not happy. She shout-
ed at us. “What the hell are you
doing?” she screamed, and said
she had asked our neighbours
to call the cops to look for us. I
assume that at the age of seven
or eight you are not supposed
to leave home, not to mention
to take off in a leaking tub on
the Atlantic Ocean.
A few years later another
opportunity rose to go west
and visit Greenland. The win-
ter was extremely cold and
harsh in my mind, but keep
in mind that at that time I had
never heard of Canada and, for
example, the winter weather in
Manitoba. Greenland did not
sound that cold either. Yet, we
had a freezing winter and never
before had I seen so much ice
at sea. To a youngster, Faxaflói,
the bay between Reykjavík and
Akranes, looked frozen solid
and the same story was true
with the seashore in the west
end, my main playground for
years.
I said to my friend Svavar
that we would not get a better
opportunity to visit Greenland,
we could walk on ice all the
way. Svavar kind of hesitated
as he did not believe me, but
then I told him that since po-
lar bears could walk on the
ice from Greenland to Iceland
— apparently one had been
seen recently in the Westfjords
— we could do it. He agreed
and we started to prepare the
journey. We were just going to
wear our usual winter clothes
and for a long time we dis-
cussed the importance of tak-
ing my sled along.
Somehow we thought it
might be more fun being on
the sled when going downhill
on the ice between Iceland and
Greenland! To prove it to our-
selves we decided to give it a
try the following day. That was
a day too late, because when
we went to the shore the ice
was gone and with it the oppor-
tunity to walk to Greenland.
Watching TV as a teen-
ager, I experienced seeing
the first man walking on the
moon. Neil Armstrong and
his fellow astronauts prepared
themselves for the occasion
in Iceland and it occurred to
me at that time that one day
I might be walking on the
moon, bearing in mind that I
had trained for a much longer
time in Iceland than the afore-
mentioned heroes. The feeling
of moonwalking was reached
in a certain way when I paid
the late Svavar Tryggvason,
the father of astronaut Bjarni
Tryggvason, a visit in Vancou-
ver about three years ago and
interviewed him for Lögberg-
Heimskringla.
When I stepped down as
the Managing Editor of L-H
I hinted that I might be back
in one way or another. In my
wildest dreams, however, it
never occured to me that one
day I would be interim Edi-
tor of Lögberg-Heimskringla.
That’s now a fact and I’m do-
ing it from Iceland 120 years
after the newspaper Lögberg
was established. Being part of
the Icelandic history in North
America beats sailing or walk-
ing from Iceland to Greenland
and walking on the moon, even
though it only lasts for a short
while.
EDITORIAL
Steinþór Guðbjartsson
Interim Editor
Dear Editor:
Regarding Nelson Gerrard’s
“Silent Flashes,” it was a par-
ticular thrill to read the January
1 edition of the Lögberg-Heim-
skringla in which you high-
lighted the “unidentified Ice-
landic girl” as my grandmother
and the wedding photo of my
grandparents. With the help
of my cousin Vern Austman
a name was put to the face of
my grandmother. I have a copy
of their wedding certificate, so
the wedding picture must have
been taken in 1901.
I have a book from the Ice-
landic government called Ves-
turfaraskrá highlighting the
emigration from Iceland from
the year 1870 to 1914. I had my
uncle (Helga’s son) review the
book, and discovered that his
mother’s family emigrated to
Canada in 1887 from the dis-
trict of Hnappadalassýsla-Jorfi
from the port in Stykkishól-
mur aboard the ship Camoens.
That year, 1,947 people emi-
grated from Iceland, the largest
emigration between 1870 and
1914.
I fondly remember my dad
and uncles reading the L-H
when it was printed only in Ice-
landic. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the memories.

Brian Sveinbjornson
Edmonton, AB
Dear David:
I’m sending the new web-
site address that Bjarki Svein-
björnsson gave us when I went
to Blaine to hear his lecture.
There have been two excellent
articles about his tour, one by
Ron Goodman and one by Joan
Eyolfson Cadham, but this ad-
dress was not given. My e-mail
message is not a criticism.
It’s really important to
publish this to further his work:
www.musik.is/america.

Norma Guttormsson
North Vancouver, BC
At the time L-H had to go to
print, the website was not fully
active, so it was removed from
the article — thank you for the
update. Anyone with an interest
in Icelandic-North American
music will find it of great inter-
est.
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Editorial and ad deadlines for the next few issues of Lög-
berg-Heimskringla are as follows:
February 1, 2008, Issue 3: deadline is January 21
February 15, 2008, Issue 4: deadline is February 4
March 1, 2008, Issue 5: deadline is February 19
Writers interested in contributing are invited to contact the
editor at (204) 927-5645. Advertisers are encouraged to con-
tact Catherine Lambertsen McConnell at (204) 927-5643 or
catherine@lh-inc.ca.
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