Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.09.2017, Page 8

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8 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • September 1 2017
Your Honour, Lieutenant
Governor Janice Filmon,
Madam Fjallkona,
honoured platform guests,
ladies and gentlemen:
The theme for this year’s
festival is “discover your land.”
As Canadians, we are
celebrating 150 years since
Confederation. I am sure I
remember coming here to the
park for the 100th anniversary
(I was only four so I might be
mistaken) but what I remember
was that we were right over there
– and there was cake. I grew up
with the Maple Leaf flag and O
Canada and live happily in the
cultural mosaic that is Canada. I
am a proud Canadian.
But growing up, I also knew
I was Icelandic, which to me
as a child meant pönnukökur
and vínarterta, opening all
our Christmas presents on
Christmas Eve, calling our
adult neighbours by their first
names, and hearing Icelandic
spoken – but always by the
older generations: our parents
and grandparents and some of
the neighbours.
When I hear Icelandic
spoken it always takes me
back to childhood – family
gatherings, my Amma’s
kitchen, Dad translating curious
Icelandic expressions. Warm
and evocative as the sound
of Icelandic is to me now, it
registered in my child’s mind
as a language of old people and
Iceland as a small, poor place,
far away where I wasn’t ever
likely to go.
For me as a kid, the
Icelandic Celebration was all
about the parade, the rides, and
the races; later, beer gardens and
dances. I volunteered with the
Icelandic Festival as a member
of the Gimli community, not the
Icelandic community.
My first introduction to
real modern-day Icelanders
and my first visit to Iceland
were because of the Icelandic
Festival. I discovered that
Iceland isn’t this sad, remote
place of old people and history
– well it’s still geographically
remote but it is an exceptionally
beautiful, modern country – and
Icelandic isn’t just a language
for old people. Even small
children speak it.
And I have discovered
that Iceland is also “my land.”
(And I do realize that Iceland
and Icelanders were there long
before I “discovered” them.)
Here are the things I have
discovered.
Iceland punches above its
weight.
Geographically, Iceland is
small – by land area, you could
fit six Icelands into the province
of Manitoba, but population-
wise it is tiny: 330,000 people.
The same as a small city –
and yet Icelanders pop up
everywhere on the world stage,
whether it’s the arts, academia,
sports, chess champions,
authors, filmmakers, and
musicians. The list goes on.
If you did the math –
considering the population,
compared to the populations
of other developed countries –
how many chess grandmasters
would you expect? How many
Olympic medals? How many
Nobel prizes? The answers,
logically, would be zero, zero,
and zero.
And yet, in 2016, the
Icelandic soccer (football) team
beat England in the round of
16 in the European football
championships.
The men’s handball team
won the silver medal in the
2008 summer Olympics.
The women’s football team
is ranked 16th in the world FIFA
rankings.
There have been nine chess
grandmasters.
Artist and musicians –
so many other examples of
Icelanders who not only appear,
but shine brightly on the world
stage.
It confounds probability.
I have discovered that
learning and literature are very
important to Icelanders.
We grew up with the story
that the Icelandic settlers came
here with only very meagre
belongings – but that among
the most prized were books.
In our district we had skalds,
poets who had the challenge of
rhyming in English, which is
harder because all of the phrases
don’t end in “inum.”
Today, books and education
remain a very important part
of Icelandic life – one in ten
Icelanders will write and
publish a book in his or her
lifetime. Many of the books are
launched right before Christmas
and Icelanders look forward
to the stack of books they’ll
receive as Christmas gifts.
The rector of the
University of Iceland, Jón
Atli Benediktsson, visited
here recently and reminded
us how remarkable it is that
tiny Iceland has a prestigious
university – granting degrees in
all of disciplines – welcoming
students from all over the world.
The University of Iceland has
been rated one of the 250 best
universities in the world by
Times Higher Education and
has an active strategy in place
to crack the top 100. Iceland
punches above its weight in so
many arenas.
Of course, the literary
tradition of Iceland goes back
to the sagas and the eddas.
Icelandic institutions preserve
manuscripts that are considered
to be treasures of world
literature.
In 1955, Halldór Laxness
was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature, in the words of the
committee, “for his vivid epic
power which has renewed the
great narrative art of Iceland.”
Public support for arts
of all kinds is high – not just
government support, but the
support of the Icelandic people
who come out to art shows and
book launches and concerts.
When there is something
happening, everyone is there,
young and old.
I have discovered that
Iceland is a progressive,
egalitarian society.
Growing up in my Icelandic
family and community, I have
a very strong sense of the
equality between men and
women and the importance
of strong women. Iceland has
been ranked as one of the top
three countries in the world for
women to live.
Iceland consistently appears
at or near the top of many
international rankings of quality
of life factors, including health
and happiness, environmental
protection, equality, political
and social stability.
The role of women in
society goes back to the
sagas where women were not
wallpaper or possessions but
powerful actors.
One of the factors that
support equality in Iceland is
their electoral system. Iceland
has proportional representation,
which is a part of what
makes Icelandic politics so
complicated, but it also allows
for more votes to count and
more voices to be heard, and
has contributed to the high level
of participation of women in
government.
On October 24, 1975,
ninety percent of women in
the country went on strike –
not just from paying jobs, but
from whatever work they did.
On that day, workplaces were
full of men trying to juggle
jobs and children for the day,
throwing light on the value and
the necessity of all of the work
that women do.
Once a year, on Women’s
Day, Icelandic women leave
their workplaces at a time
symbolic of the gap between
their paycheque and that of their
male counterparts. In 2016, the
symbolic time was 2:38 in the
afternoon – 2 hours and 12
minutes, or thirty percent of
the workday. So clearly there is
work to do yet – and it is being
done. There is legislation in
the works in Iceland that will
require equal pay for equal
work for all employers, both
public and private.
Importantly, it is not just
women who support these
Toast to Iceland
Sandra Sigurdson
Winnipeg, MB
PHOTO: STEFAN JONASSON
Sandra Sigurdson, Toast to Iceland, Íslendingadagurinn
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