Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.03.2009, Side 5

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Lögberg-Heimskringla • 1. mars 2009 • 5
Headline news in
deepest Saskatchewan
With the terrible fires in Australia in the news not long ago, resi-
dents of Foam Lake, Saskatch-
ewan were probably nodding
their heads in sad empathy, re-
membering the recent summer
when their entire town nearly
went up in flame.
Bob Johnson certainly re-
members. He’s the Icelandic-
blooded editor and publisher of
the Foam Lake Review, as well
as of the Wynyard Advance
Gazette, and is the publisher
of the Ituna News as well. He
also happens to be the mayor of
Foam Lake, so he well recalls
the night in late June of 2006
when a water bottling shop
burst into flame, and the flames
spread to neighbouring busi-
nesses and nearly leveled the
whole street. And he recalls the
day the grain elevator caught
fire and almost got to the Co-
Op’s propane tower before wa-
ter bombers and volunteer fire
crews got the blaze under con-
trol. Still, “It burned for four
days,” Johnson says.
The two calamities were
just thirty-two days apart: ash
from the previous fire was still
visible when the second one
ignited. “I’m not too sure what
we did to deserve this,” a shak-
en Johnson said at the time.
He still shakes his head at
the memory – which is only
two and a half years old, after
all. But the bright side to it all –
which seems brighter still after
the tragic and horrible stories
that came out of Australia –
was that, amid all the flame and
destruction in Foam Lake that
summer, no one was hurt.
Johnson’s memories of the
disaster are keen also because
he’s a journalist, and comes
from a long line of newspaper-
men. His grandfather, Ernest
Johnson, moved to Foam Lake
in the early 30s, and took over
the Foam Lake Review in 1936.
His son Carl succeeded him
in the position, and Bob in his
turn became the publisher in
the 1970s.
He comes by his ink-tainted
blood honestly. “I used to come
down and help my father and
grandfather [at the newspaper
office],” he recalls fondly. “I
loved it.” These days, even if
there happens not to be a rag-
ing inferno anywhere in town,
he never lacks for content.
“There’s always a lot going
on,” he says of the Foam Lake
region. “And I have a very good
staff.”
Johnson has been mayor
of Foam Lake since 2003, and
was on the town council for at
least a dozen years before that.
He devotes roughly two days
of each work week to may-
oral activities and the rest to
the newspapers. He’s got three
daughters, but all of them have
their own careers, and none are
looking to run a newspaper; the
Johnson dynasty may therefore
lose its grip on the Foam Lake
and Wynyard news empires at
some point in the future. But it
won’t happen anytime soon, the
hale and hearty Johnson says.
One thing he has relaxed his
grip on is the paper’s editorial
voice – opinion and commen-
tary is for the most part entrust-
ed to Foam Lake resident and
L-H contributor Joan Eyolfson
Cadham. “When I write an edi-
torial I usually get in trouble,”
Johnson laughs.
Newspapers, as one can so
readily see merely by looking
at one these days, are in trouble
as a format, generally getting
smaller, less frequent and less
compelling; but in a place like
Foam Lake the demand for lo-
cal news from a local voice will
never slacken. Like most small
papers, both the Foam Lake Re-
view and the Wynyard Advance
Gazette diversified income
sources long ago, offering print
and design services, which will
be helpful if advertising clients
become more difficult to find.
But as long as there is news,
and as long as there are people
to read it, the small presses of
Foam Lake and Wynyard will
continue to hum.
PHoto: tayler joHnson, foam lake review
The elevator fire was a most spectacular conflagration.
PHoto: caelum vatnsdal
Bob Johnson in his Foam Lake newspaper office.
Iceland’s Presidential
couple argue in interview
In a long interview with the Condé Nast Portfolio, pub-lished in its online edition
on Monday, Iceland’s presi-
dential couple, Ólafur Ragnar
Grímsson and Dorrit Mous-
saieff, argue about what the
first lady is allowed to say.
Moussaieff said she had of-
ten warned that the banks would
collapse, that she had a long ex-
perience in business affairs and
that she had realized the extent
of the risk they were taking. Her
husband then said it was not in
her place to make such state-
ments, Morgunbladid reports.
The interview is based on
a conversation that Portfolio
journalist Joshua Hammer
had with the first couple dur-
ing dinner at their residence,
Bessastadir, in December. Al-
though the president insisted
that the first lady’s comments
were off the record, Mous-
saieff later called Hammer and
dismissed her husband’s pro-
viso, giving the journalist per-
mission to use all of her quotes
for the interview.
Moussaieff also disagreed
with her husband that thou-
sands of Icelanders would lose
their homes, claiming it impos-
sible since there are more hous-
es than people in Iceland.
The first lady commented
that she had wanted to join the
protests on Austurvöllur par-
liamentary square but that her
husband wouldn’t allow it.
Moussaieff said she had
followed the dispute between
Icelandic and British authori-
ties closely and that she was
planning to hold an informal
meeting with the representa-
tives of Icelandic authorities in
London to discuss how to deal
with the claim of British au-
thorities that Icelanders honor
their obligations towards Brit-
ish account holders.
Presidential secretary
Örnólfur Thorsson said he had
not heard of any such meeting.
Reprinted with permission
from IcelandReview.com.
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