The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1954, Side 13

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
11
radio announcements were made Irom
time to time.
But the outstanding inoident or one
might say the most significant dis-
closure brought about by the visit, was
an editorial in the Winnipeg Free
Press. It is a gem which must not be
tarnished by random comment and is
re-published in full.
“SON OF ICELAND
Canada is today, and will be for
some generations to come, a nation
of immigrants. Millions of us look
back, either directly or through mem-
ories of fireside tales and family trad-
itions, to other lands and other
customs. Time will change all this and
a Canadian will someday be simply a
Canadian, as a Frenchman is today a
Frenchman or an Icelander an Ice-
lander.
But if this period of hyphenated
Canadianism is a passing phase, that is
no reason to hurry it along. The fixed
pattern of the future Canadian’s char-
acter is being formed now, out of a
hundred strands of national cultures,
each contributing new strength and
richness to our own culture, each cher-
ished with a quite proper pride and
jealousy by the immigrant; sometimes
even by the immigrant three or four
generations removed.
The Icelandic people of Winnipeg
are looking forward to hearing Mr.
Byron Johnson at their annual concert
on Tuesday because they know that he
is a good speaker and that he has made
notable contributions to Canada: as a
professional lacrosse player, as a mem-
ber of the Royal Air Force in the First
World War, as an industrialist and as
Premier of British Columbia. But they
are proud of him because he has done
these things as the son of parents who
came from Iceland to be Canadians.
In his middle name, Ingemar, Mr.
Johnson carries the badge of his heri-
tage.”
o o o
Byron Ingemar Johnson has visited
us and gone back to his native prov-
ince. What he said and did has made
it abundantly clear how he thinks and
feels. He is proud of two things which
he expressed in such few but mean-
ingful words:
“I am the son of Icelandic im-
migrants”.
“I am a Canadian”.
It was the irony of fate that the
writer of the editorial, a Canadian of
non-Icelandic descent, should give it
the title: “Son of Iceland”. The editor-
ial was not initialed but one has reason
to believe that it was written by the
son of a distinguished Canadian journ-
alist, Thomas B. Roberton, born in
Glasgow, of Scottish-Ulster descent,
widely known as “T.B.R.”, who at the
time of his death in 19S6 was assistant
editor-in-chief of the Winnipeg Free
Press. If the surmise is correct it is not
difficult to understand that in Byron
Johnson and himself the son could see
a confluence of national streams.
Destiny decreed that Byron John-
son, as many other children of im-
migrants, should lose contact with the
group of hjs ethnic origin with the in-
evitable result that he soon forgot the
language he learned on his mother’s
knee. But still, and even though Byron
Johnson was born in Canada, the
phrase “Son of Iceland” was ap-
propriate and as indicated in the ed-
itorial can be extended further. It can
apply to children whose parents were
born in Canada, parents who know
very little if any Icelandic' themselves
and could not attempt to teach the
language to their children.