Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.03.2009, Blaðsíða 4

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4 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • 1 March 2009
Going to Reykjavík
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Heimskringla stofnað 14. janúar 1886
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To the editor,
I love my Lögberg! It
makes me wish I was more
than just 50% Icelandic!
Eric Baldwinson
Calgary, AB
* * *
To the editor:

Now that our son Kyle
has made Iceland his home
since 2006, we are interested
in helping his family of four
to thrive in spite of the cur-
rent economic conditions. We
enjoy our visits to Akureyri,
but we also have discovered a
service which helps us to send
packages conveniently and
with reasonable cost. Pack &
Post on Corydon Avenue in
Winnipeg provides many ser-
vices, such as gift wrapping,
shipping packages domesti-
cally and overseas, transport-
ing fragile articles like china
(using foam-in-place technol-
ogy), volume mailing, postal
services, lamination, and small
business support. To reduce
shipping expenses, we have
chosen the surface mail option,
which takes about 6 weeks to
arrive in Akureyri. Happily,
we will see them again this
coming summer, with our own
Special Delivery.

Anne and Brian Gud-
mundson
Winnipeg, MB
ARGYLE
Transfer Ltd.
Specializing
in livestock transportation
Daryl & Carolyn Finnbogason
Warren, MB
Daryl 322-5743 Mobile 981-5460
At the moment I’m pre-paring for a trip to Iceland; but how does
one really prepare for a trip to
Iceland, especially now? It’s
a business trip of course: I’m
going not just as a representa-
tive of Lögberg-Heimskringla
but also of the cultural festival
Núna(now), so my schedule
will be a very full one.
The overarching theme of
the trip is the importance of our
(that is my, L-H’s, the whole
Icelandic community of North
America’s) connections to Ice-
land. The connections in gener-
al are as strong as they’ve been
for over a hundred and thirty
years, but from the newspaper’s
perspective, they could use a lit-
tle shoring up. We’d like to in-
crease our Icelandic subscriber
base, welcome in new Icelandic
advertisers (who, in our modern
world of e-commerce, have a lot
of potential customers in North
America) and, by meeting with
and talking to actual Icelanders,
to get a better sense of what’s
happening on Iceland’s igneous
ground in these historic times
so that it may be reported accu-
rately in these pages.
As I say, the relationship
in general is as lively and ami-
cable as ever; but it is mutable
too. There is a point in every
son and daughter’s life when
they realize their parents are not
infallible, immortal or omnipo-
tent after all, and in fact will
require aid and comfort in the
years to come; and so it is be-
tween our community and the
mothership. (This analogy is
fine as far as it goes, but breaks
down on factoring in the one-
way direction of human lives
versus the falling and rising for-
tunes of a broader national his-
tory.) The image of confidence
and plenty Iceland has so care-
fully cultivated in recent years
has fallen apart, and now, after
years of Icelandic generosity, it
is we North Americans who are
in a position to offer them what
help and succor we may.
So this particular trip to
Iceland will probably be a little
different from my two previous
jaunts. I’m no fashion plate, as
visitors to the L-H office will
attest, and visiting Iceland in
years past felt a little like step-
ping into an expensive boutique
filled with stylishly-dressed
hipsters whose elegance I could
never hope to match. I expect
the mood will have changed
somewhat: from all that I have
read and heard, Iceland has un-
dergone a real shift in priorities
over the last few months, a hon-
ing of energies, a toughening-
up. And, of course, a cheapen-
ing: a cup of coffee no longer
costs the equivalent of ten dol-
lars. I’m looking forward to ex-
periencing all that in person.
The fascinating article in
a recent issue of Condé Nast’s
Portfolio magazine is mak-
ing me anticipate this journey
all the more. It’s a post-crash
portrait of Icelandic President
Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson and
his socialite wife Dorrit Mous-
saieff, and it features several
instances of the couple bicker-
ing about what can and cannot
be said about the situation in
Iceland. Grímsson is portrayed
as almost psychotically opti-
mistic, as though his years as
a cheerleader for the country’s
upward mobility have rendered
him incapable of conceiving of
an Iceland in genuine distress.
Moussaieff for her part
seems to have spent the years
leading up to the crisis alter-
nately clubbing in London and,
in her adopted country, playing
the role of the Roman conquer-
or’s slave spoken of by Patton,
who “stood behind the conquer-
or holding a golden crown and
whispering in his ear a warning
that all glory is fleeting.” (Igno-
miny fades too, but rather less
quickly, it seems.) In the pres-
ence of the Condé Nast jour-
nalist she tells her husband just
what his fiercest critics would
like to: that he should have
known the country’s economy
could not withstand the debt-
load its freewheeling banks
were accruing.
Whether this is a complete-
ly accurate portrait of Iceland’s
First Couple and their inner
lives is up to question. I have
met Grímsson on more than
one occasion, and he struck me
as rather more tuned-in than
the article made him out to be.
More important is whether or
not this is how they are viewed
by the Icelandic public. It will
be interesting to find out, and
it will be my great pleasure to
report my findings in L-H.
I would like to note also that
the trip will be made that much
easier thanks to a little gift from
my new architect friends at the
Icelandic firm Batteríið. The
gift, pictured above, is a small
phrasebook which provides
translations of such key phras-
es as “I’ve got a hangover,”
“Where have you been all my
life?” and “Does size matter?”
into thirteen languages, includ-
ing, of course, Icelandic. I’m
just hoping I won’t need “Ég
þarf að kasta upp.”
EDITORIAL
Caelum Vatnsdal
Managing Editor
Minnist
Remember
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