The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1961, Síða 45

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
43
covery of Greenland and America. In
die former they established another
unique settlement which lasted over
five hundred years—a colony whose
ruins still testify to the energy, vitality
and enterprise of a handful of men
who overcame the greatest physical
obstacles.
And so one might go on listing the
achievements of the Viking Spirit in
the Middle Ages. One might, indeed,
bring the tale down to the present,
and point to the continuing work of
men who pursue as the old Vikings
did, the quest of the unknown, who
labour to remove all obstacles to spirit-
ual and material progress, and who
believe that to the human spirit no
problem is insoluble, no task insur-
mountable.
One might point to the Scandinavian
countries as a whole as models of liber-
al democracy, as countries where the
highest degree of individualism has
been preserved but not at the expense
of the common good. One might men-
tion the 'tremendous contribution to
education made by Grundtvig and
other Danes in their school system; the
contribution to music made by Grieg,
Sibelius and many others; the signific-
ant impetus given to philosophical and
theological studies in the work of
Kirkegaard; the great contributions to
letters made by such individuals as
Selma Lagerlof and Sigrid Undset to
mention only two women; the enorm-
ously valuable historical research of
such men as Steenstrup and Mickwitz;
the creative architectural work of
Sweden and Finland and the contribu-
tions of various Scandinavians in the
scientific field; the service to the cause
of international understanding render-
ed by such men as Nobel, Nansen,
Trygvie Lie and Dag Hammiarskjold.
It is, however, with only one field
of endeavour that I wish to deal here—
a field of endeavour in which, I think,
the Viking Spirit has been more con-
tinuously evident than in any other.
I refer to the field of northern explor-
ation.
The Arctic and northern lands in
general were almost unknown to the
Mediterranean civilizations, although
Pytheas of Massilia may have visited
Iceland or Norway as early as 320 B.C.
The Roman coins recently found in
Iceland can hardly be regarded as con-
clusive evidence of a Roman visit to
that country in the fourth century A.D.,
but there is no doubt that the Irish in
the seventh and eighth centuries sail-
ed the North Atlantic and reached Ice-
land. Real light, however, is first
thrown on the northern regions by
the sailings of the Vikings from the
ninth century on. At the court of Al-
fred the Great of England we meet
with the Norwegian Ottar who had
sailed north around the Kola peninsula
into the White Sea. And about the
same time the Vikings discovered Ice-
land and began to settle that land,
here they established the first European
republic north of the Alps, or, if Ice-
land belongs geographically to the
Western Hemisphere, the first Amer-
ican republic. Here the Viking Spirit
created in the political sphere one of
the most interesting states in all history
and brought forth one of the noblest
literatures of all times, exemplifying
in its range the unlimited vistas the
Viking Spirit sought to encompass, and
in its accuracy that love of truth for its
own sake which is another of its great
characteristics.
In the tenth century Eric the Red
performed his remarkable feat of sail-
ing to, and exploring, Greenland,
where he then established a colony
that flourished for centuries and
brought North America into the orbit
of European civilization, thus giving