The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1967, Page 35

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
33
Address of Dr. P. H. T. Thorlakson
Chairman of the Canadian (Icelandic) Centennial Committee
On the first of July, our country will
cross the threshold into the second
century of Confederation. In honour of
this historic occasion, Canadians have
extended the traditional one day birth-
day celebration to one year of com-
memoration.
Many Centennial projects, varied
and inspired in their conception, will
remain as permanent tributes to the
imagination and resourcefulness of the
Canadian people.
There is an unmistakable desire on
the part of many groups of Canadians
to examine their own position and ac-
complishments relative to the op-
portunities that have been available
to them since their arrival in (this land.
At the close of this memorable Cen-
tennial year, every person will know
more about the history and achieve-
ments of Canada—the land of his birth
or the land of his adoption—and will
have a deeper appreciation of what it
means to be a Canadian.
We have gathered here today, in this
magnificent National Library and
Archives Building, to honour the Cen-
tennial of Confederation and to com-
memorate the discovery of the Western
Hemisphere by mariners from Iceland
and Greenland in the late tenth cen-
tury.
From the dawn of history, the Wes-
tern Ocean—also called the Green Sea
of Darkness—was a constant challenge
and a mystery to the sea-faring na-
tions of Europe.
A period of great expansion—com-
DR. P. H. T. THORLAKSON
Chairman, Canadian (Icelandic) Cent. Com.
monlv known as the Viking Age—com-
menced towards the latter part of die
eighth century and continued for over
two hundred years. From the present
Norway, Sweden and Denmark, this
expansion took Norsemen to the east,
to the south and to the west. They
landed in Normandy, England, Scot-
land, and Ireland. In 874, they reached
Iceland and established the old Ice-
landic Republic in 930. Towards the
end of that century, they pushed on,
first to Greenland and then further
westward to the shores of a new con-
tinent which they called Vinland. Thus
the North Atlantic Ocean—the dread-
ed Green Sea of Darkness—was success-
fully spanned for the first time.