The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1961, Qupperneq 61

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
59
Franklin and Anna, Mrs. Wilfred
Clarke, all of Winnipeg, William of
Covina, Calif., Stanley at Port Alberni,
B. C., and Percy of Hayward, Calif.
★
AWARDED A FELLOWSHIP
Professor Haraldur Bessason
Professor Haraldur Bessason 'has
been awarded a Fellowship of $900.00
by the Canada Council for post-gradu-
ate studies at the University of Ice-
land in Reykjavik. Last summer Prof.
Bessason attended Cornell University,
Ithaca, New York. These summer
courses are part of a series of studies
leading to a Doctor of Philosophy
Degree.
Professor Bessason left for Iceland
on June 7, with Mrs. Bessason and
their three daughters. They will be
returning to Canada in August.
★
MATTHIAS A. THORFINNSON
Chairman of Minnesota Chapter of
Soil Conservation Society of America
The following appeared in the Feb.
1st, 1961 edition of The Minneapolis
Star:
Matthias A. Thorfinnson
Election as Chairman of the Min-
nesota chapter of the Soil Conservation
Society of America was a natural
for Matthias A. Thorfinnson.
Thorfinnson has been in conserva-
tion for more than 40 years.
A native of Munich, N. D., he got
into conservation work after graduat-
ing in 1917 from the old North Da-
kota Agricultural college (now the
North Dakota State University of
Agriculture and Mechanical Arts).
After graduation he went to Mon-
tana as a county agent, and there first
encountered wind erosion in the
quarter-sections the farmers were used
to fallowing.
Thorfinnson persuaded the farmers
to fallow in strips, which broke up
the sweep of the wind.
After seven years in Montana, he
came to Minnesota, first as a county
agent in the Red River valley, then in
Goodhue county, where he met the
problem of water erosion.
‘My predecessor in that job spent
the whole week or 10 days we were
together talking about it,” he remem-
bers.
Thorfinnson worked with the South-
east Minnesota Soil Conservation as-