Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.07.2015, Blaðsíða 10

10 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • July 1 2015
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There exists a cautionary Icelandic tale – known as The Saga of Conrad
the Emperor’s Son and Rodbert
the Traitor (Sagan af Konráð
keisarasyni og Róðbert svikara)
– on the importance of learning
languages.
The hero, Conrad of
Saxland, is a great athlete and
at the top of his class, but he
trustingly leaves the field of
foreign languages entirely to his
foster-brother Rodbert, who has
promised Conrad that he will
interpret for him. As the title of
the saga suggests, this proves
to be a very bad idea. When
Conrad and Rodbert go abroad
together, Rodbert cunningly
represents himself as the true
prince and attempts to win the
hand of the King of Greece’s
daughter, claiming that Conrad
is a shady, untrustworthy
character who’s tagging along
because of a scandal at home.
Rodbert only puts up with him
because he’s an old family
friend. Fortunately, Princess
Matthildur has better prince-
recognition skills than her father
the king. With Matthildur’s
help, Conrad is able to prove
his identity to the court through
a series of knightly quests.
Rodbert is defeated, and there is
a happy ending for the hero and
Princess Matthildur.
Even though this saga dates
from the fourteenth century
and is set in a world of knights
and princesses and castles,
anyone who has ever travelled
to a country where the words
you speak get you nothing but
a blank stare will probably
find it easy to sympathize with
Conrad. He goes from being the
beloved and talented heir to the
throne in his home country to
a good-for-nothing peasant. As
Conrad discovers, actions may
speak louder than words, but
words are faster. His identity
is abruptly taken from him in a
language in which he’s unable
to defend himself. His side of
the story gets stuck behind a
linguistic barrier more powerful
than trolls and dragons.
Fast forward to the early
1900s, when the Canadian
government is heavily – and
very successfully – promoting
immigration from Europe
to Western Canada. Posters
advertise greener grass, bluer
skies, a sunnier sun, and
happier families in the Last
Best West. Come make Canada
your new homeland – this will
be the beginning of a beautiful
friendship.
So how did it go so quickly
from this this welcoming of
immigrants to a “not-so-friendly
Manitoba,” where “foreigners”
were viewed with suspicion?
Images from the time of
the Winnipeg General Strike
of 1919 show some of the
messages used by anti-strikers –
the Citizens’ Committee of One
Thousand in particular – in their
campaign to paint the strike as
a conspiracy to overthrow
democracy and replace it with
a Bolshevist system – that
is, Communism. Under the
pretense of demanding fair
wages and collective bargaining
rights, the labour movement was
actually planning something
like the October Revolution
of 1917 in Russia. These
revolutionaries, the anti-strikers
claimed, were not Canadians at
all. They were none other than
the Europeans who had craftily
infiltrated the working classes
and were turning otherwise
happy workers against their
own country. Beware, the alien
enemy is coming!
The Winnipeg General
Strike is one of the major events
in Winnipeg history – one that
made headlines around the
world in 1919 when nearly 20
percent of the city’s population,
an estimated 30,000 people,
stopped working on May 15th at
11:00 a.m. in an act of solidarity
when employers refused to
negotiate with the newly-formed
Building and Metal Trades
Councils, representing city
construction and metalworkers.
A Central Strike Committee
was gormed to organize striking
workers, while opposition to
the strike was organized by
the aforementioned Citizens’
Committee of One Thousand.
For weeks, neither side showed
any sign of backing down. The
general strike ended tragically
in June of 1919, when a protest
against the arrest of strike
leaders turned violent and two
strikers died of gunshot wounds.
For Winnipeggers at the
time, what happened in Market
Square on June 21st depended
on your perspective – the anti-
strikers characterized it as a riot,
but protesters described being
beaten and attacked by armed
thugs. In either case, there were
machine guns in the streets of
Winnipeg and the city was, for
a time, essentially under martial
law. The strike officially ended
on June 25th – again at 11:00
a.m.
There isn’t time here to
discuss all the causes and
effects of the strike – a lot of
good books have been written
on the subject, as have many
interesting articles, blogs,
and documentaries. The role
of the press has often been a
focus, but what is noticeable
about discussion of the role of
the press is that it’s generally
limited to discussion of
English-language newspapers:
the Winnipeg Free Press (then
called the Manitoba Free
Press), the Winnipeg Tribune,
the Winnipeg Telegram, the
anti-labour Winnipeg Citizen,
and the pro-labour Western
Labour News.
For example, if you go
to Wikipedia looking for
information on the general
strike, you will read that, “The
local newspapers, the Winnipeg
Free Press and Winnipeg
Tribune, had lost the majority
of their employees due to the
strike and took a decidedly
anti-strike stance.”
What often gets overlooked
is the fact that Winnipeg
was a city where numerous
non-English newspapers
were being printed. Just to
mention a few Scandinavian
Canadian examples: papers
printed in Winnipeg included
Heimskringla and Lögberg in
Icelandic, Svenska-Canada
Tidningen in Swedish, and the
Norrøna in Norwegian.
The Norrøna was a
weekly newspaper with its
headquarters at 325 Logan
Avenue. It was once the
largest Norwegian Canadian
newspaper and, for most of its
history, the only Norwegian
Canadian newspaper. Today,
however, the Norrøna is at
risk of being forgotten entirely.
Newspapers from the first years
of its publication are available
only in Ottawa and anyone
going to the Manitoba Archives
to research this paper is faced
with the many challenges of
microfilm.
The findings I’d like
to share today are from a
research project funded by the
Norwegian Canadian Club here
at the Scandinavian Centre and
the Manitoba Heritage Grants
Program. Randi Tollefsen
and Malfred Brewer have
been working on archiving
and preserving the story of
the Norwegian community in
Winnipeg.
The story of the Norrøna
turns out to be a fascinating
one. The Norrøna’s first
publisher was Peter Martin
Dahl, born on January 18, 1869
in Orkdal, Norway, a rural
district bordering Rindal to the
south and just across the fjord
from the city of Trondheim.
Dahl moved to Sweden at the
age of only thirteen, living in
Ocke and later in Malmberget,
and he spoke fluent Swedish as
well as Norwegian. At twenty-
nine, he moved back to Norway
to study business in Trondheim.
He married Johanne Rosvold
in 1902 and emigrated to
Canada that same year. His wife
Johanne did not accompany
him on the trip, likely because
she was pregnant with their first
child.
On October 16, 1902,
Dahl was seriously injured
in a construction accident in
Winnipeg: he and a fellow
worker from Norway, T. Braath,
fell 82 feet from a scaffold
while working on the interior
of an elevator. Braath died
hours later at Winnipeg General
Hospital; Dahl survived but
never regained the full use of
one foot.
No longer able to work as
a labourer, Dahl enrolled in
Winnipeg Business College and
found a job as an accountant for
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From the pages of the Norrøna: The 1919 Winnipeg General Strike
Katelin Parsons
Reykjavík, Iceland
Katelin Parsons and Steini Gunnarsson at the Scandinavian Centre
PHOTO: SELMA PARSONS