The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1961, Síða 15

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
13
GUEST EDITORIAL
The President's Visit
by CAROLINE GUNNARSSON
The president of Iceland has return-
home from a state visit to a country
that did not feel foreign under his feet.
His Excellency Asgeir Asgeirsson
told Reykjavik newspapermen that this
was a pleasure peculiar to his recent
tour of Canada. He had noted in pass-
ing that every fourth person of Iceland-
ic lineage had now taken root in the
two nations of the Western Hemis-
phere and many among them no longer
spoke their ancestral tongue.
“But I think there is much truth in
what one man said to me,” he added,
“ ’We can be Icelandic in English’ ”.
“There is much Icelandic in them,”
His Excellency remarked to the news-
men, plainly referring to the qualities
of character and cultural heritage that
speak through a people’s contribution
to life in their chosen country, what-
ever its official language.
It is a healthy source of pride to a
Canadian to be so spontaneously hail-
ed as blood-brother by the distinguish-
ed first citizen of his ancestral soil.
And it is a unique honor for a small
component group of the great Can-
adian nation to be invited to stand be-
side its government as co-hosts to the
head of state in their “old country.”
Such elevation was gained by Ice-
landic Canadians by the state visit to
Canada of the president of Iceland and
his gracious lady.
The glow of honor and pride will
leave a lasting reflection as we look
back on the visit of their Excellencies,
but it is understanding that joins the
souls of men.
The president’s sensitive perception
of us Canadians laid his firmest claim
to our affections. In Canadians who
came to a wild and virgin land with
nothing to invest but their Icelandic
heritage of intellectual integrity and
physical toughness, he saw the spirit of
those who settled Iceland more than a
thousand years ago. In the love and
loyalty for the new soil that quickly
took root in them he recognized that
spirit, too. And with fine insight he
understood that this was not to weaken
the emotional and cultural ties wih the
land of our fathers.
He said so on many occasions, in
many different ways.
It is truel The descendents of the
immigrants are often unmistakably
Icelandic in English. It is also true that
the early settlers could be poignantly
Canadian in Icelandic. This his Excel-
lency sensed and understood. He re-
flected on it with some sadness be-
cause the language barrier prevented
other Canadians from sharing the
homage offered by our best -poets to the
beauties of the Canadian landscape.
He told the Reykjavik newsmen that
travelling throught Alberta, he was
constantly aware that this was Stephan
G. Stephansson’s country. The poetry