Lögberg-Heimskringla - 15.02.2015, Síða 11

Lögberg-Heimskringla • 15. febrúar 2015 • 11
ONLINE MAGAZINE: WWW. HEIMSKRINGLOG.COM
Skriðdalur is a long interior valley in the east of Iceland, a place rich in
lore and landscape. At the north
end of the valley, the Lagarfljót
Serpent (Iceland’s equivalent
of the Loch Ness Monster) was
believed to inhabit the nearby
lake, while herds of reindeer,
imported in the eighteenth
century, wandered the birch
and spruce forest, one of the
few natural forests to survive
the settlement of Iceland more
than a thousand years ago. At
the other end of the valley lies
a highland moor where legend
says a great battle took place
during Viking times. And in
the middle of it all is Þingmúli
(Meeting Mountain), once the
site of a pagan temple, where the
district assemblies were held in
centuries past and where fossils
can be found to the present
day. It was here, in this fertile
valley for the imagination,
where Guðrún H. Finnsdóttir
was born on February 6, 1884
at the farmstead Geirólfsstaðir,
the daughter of Finnur Björnsson
and Bergþóra Helgadóttir.
When she was sixteen,
Guðrún moved to the northern
town of Akureyri, where she
was enrolled in the Women’s
School. While living there with
her maternal aunt, she met Gísli
Jónsson, a printer and poet
whom she married two years
later. In 1904, they immigrated
to Winnipeg, where Gísli
pursued his trade as a printer
while Guðrún raised the five
children that came along in the
fullness of time. In Canada,
Guðrún was known socially
as Guðrún Johnson, but she
continued to write as Guðrún H.
Finnsdóttir.
When their children reached
an age that allowed her to
turn her attention to literary
pursuits, Guðrún began writing
essays and short stories, which
were published in various
newspapers and periodicals,
including Brautin (The Path),
the monthly magazine of
the United Conference of
Icelandic Unitarian and Liberal
Christian Churches, Tímarit,
an annual publication of the
Icelandic National League,
and Heimskringla, one of
Winnipeg’s two Icelandic
weekly newspapers. Most
of her writing chronicles the
everyday struggles of the
immigrants to find their place
in a new homeland. Several of
her short stories were collected
in two volumes, Hillingalönd
(Enchanted Lands, 1938) and
Dagshríðar spor (Trails of
Daily Struggles, 1946), while
her essays were gathered and
published posthumously in
Ferðalók (Journey’s End, 1950).
Less widely known outside the
Icelandic community than her
contemporary, Laura Goodman
Salverson – largely because
she wrote in Icelandic rather
than English, the language of
the emerging generation of
Icelandic Canadians – Guðrún’s
writings were widely read and
appreciated by those who were
fluent in the mother tongue.
Guðrún Finnsdóttir and her
husband were both very much
involved in the social life of the
community. An active member
of the Ladies’ Aid Society of the
Unitarian Church, she served
as president of the society from
1927 to 1928 and was involved
in its varied projects, including
its work to establish a lakeside
camp for needy children and
its wartime support for Red
Cross relief efforts. In 1916,
she was one of the founding
members of the Jón Sigurðsson
Chapter of the Imperial Order
of Daughters of the Empire
(IODE), an unusual branch of
the IODE, which otherwise
consisted almost exclusively
of women of British heritage.
During the First World War,
the Jón Sigurðsson Chapter
was involved in almost every
conceivable effort to support
Canada’s soldiers overseas
– sending knitted wear and
personal parcels, raising funds
for a hospital convalescent ward,
entertaining military personnel
and corresponding with soldiers
at the front, while caring for
their families at home. When the
war was over, Guðrún served
on the editorial committee and
contributed numerous entries
for Minningarrit Íslenzkra
hermanna, a memorial book
published by the IODE in 1923
to honour the women and men
of Icelandic heritage who had
served in the armed forces of
Canada and the United States
during the war.
At the time of her death,
which came suddenly and
unexpectedly on March 25,
1946, Philip M. Petursson
paid tribute to her by saying,
“she was one of the sanest and
most clear minded women that
I have known. She held clear
and undeluded thoughts on
most subjects. Emotionalism
or prejudice were foreign to
her and were not a part of her
process of thought. ... And yet
she was not cold or austere. She
was full of human sympathy
and understanding and insight,
as is amply shown in her literary
productions which were of a
uniformly high quality. ... Her
steadying influence and her quiet
and reasonable presentation of
her views, the dignity of her
bearing at all times, her ability
to mediate conflicting points of
view, all combined in helping to
make rough places plain and to
calm turbulent waters.”
The enchanted tale of Guðrún H. Finnsdóttir
Stefan Jonasson
Winnipeg, MB
Trade and industry federations
protest plans to break off EU
discussions
ruv.is – The board of directors of
Icelandic Federation of Trade (ITF)
protested the Icelandic government’s
plans to reintroduce a proposal to formally
breakoff membership discussions with the
European Union (EU) and rescind Iceland’s
application for membership in the union. The
ITF board deems it extremely inadvisable
and misguided to reduce the number of
Iceland’s options in monetary affairs by
rescinding the membership application. It
also called on the government to reconsider
its position. The board of directors of the
Federation of Icelandic Industries has raised
similar concerns. Its board also deemed it
to be irresponsible and unnecessary for the
government to pour oil on the fire of political
disputes in this manner, at the same time as
the situation on the labour market is more
difficult and more sensitive than it has been
for a long time.
Reprinted with permission from Icelandic
News Briefs, published by KOM PR.
“Death had never come so near to me
before, and I understood better than
ever before that now every avenue
was closed between us. In that way
every life ends. No one bids his friends
farewell as warmly as he would
have wished. No one expresses his
thoughts or love as fully as he would
have desired. No one finishes the work
he had planned to do. No one finds
the complete fulfillment of his fairest
dreams.”
– Guðrún H. Finnsdóttir
Iceland News Brief
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