The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1967, Page 89

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
87
heaven, or threat of hell, because good
is good to do.
What was it that finally caused the
Icelanders to sheath their swords for-
ever? My belief is, and there are many
hints in the saga of Burnt Njal, to
justify this belief, that deep in their
innermost souls, they had a quality, a
quality which they shared with the
English — the quality of law-abiding-
ness. Their sense of justice came from
their own natures. Even when they
were indulging in their blood feuds,
they knew that force is never the ulti-
mate solution to any problem. They
knew that they could not live on an
intellectual level in an atmosphere of
violence. They knew that peace is the
great blessing, but not a peace that is
bought at too great a price — the price
of chains and slavery, — whether of
body or mind. Bishop Jon Arason, the
last Catholic bishop of Iceland, was
speaking as a true Icelander when he
said, shortly before he bent his neck
to the axe of the executioner:
“Every man should be true to his
convictions, even though as a harvest
he reap death.”
In 1930, the Icelanders celebrate;'
the millennial anniversary of th°
Althing. In our centennial year, we
are celebrating, among other things,
the hundredth birthday of our Can-
adian Parliament, a child of the
Mother of Parliaments. We have a
long way to go. In comparison with the
Icelanders, in Emerson’s words, we are
only at the cock-crowing and the morn-
ing star.
What have Canadians of Icelandic
origin contributed to Manitoba? I
shall answer this question in borrow-
ed words. In her book, Manitoba Mile-
stones, published in 1928, Margaret
McWilliams, offered a tentative
answer:
.......“of all the peoples who have
come to Manitoba,” she wrote, “(they)
have most quickly become identified
with the British population, and have
made most progress in the general life
of the province. One of their number
who came as a small boy, Hon. Thomas
Johnson, became Attorney-General of
Manitoba. Their most famous repre-
sentative is the explorer, Stefansson,
who was born on the shores of Lake
Winnipeg in 1879. At the time of the
celebration of the fiftieth anniversary
of their coming they claimed in the
west 18 members of the legislatures, 2
Rhodes Scholars, 19 professors, 40
lawyers and 40 doctors, a remarkable
percentage out of the 16,000 who now
live in Canada, of whom 12,000 are in
Manitoba.”
A more recent answer has been given
by Arthur R. M. Lower, in his Can
adians in the Making, published in
1958: “Scandinavians, who are numer-
ous in Canada”, said Dr. Lower, “but
rather scattered, are usually thought
of as solid citizens, quickly becoming
integrated into the general community,
yet, Icelanders apart, they have con-
tributed no one of prominence to the
Canadian political and judicial world,
and only half of Frederick Philip
Grove to the literary. The Icelanders
rate high on any count — literary fig-
ures, public men, judges, professors,
have proceeded from this small con-
centrated people.”
Just a word in passing about one of
their literary figures. When his grand-
daughter, Heather Sigurdson (now
Mrs. William Ireland) was chosen Miss
Manitoba for 1958, Guttormur J. Gut-
tormsson was a very proud man. He
went about saying to his friends, “I
guess this makes me the grandfather
of Manitoba.” Had he written his
poetry in English, one fact is certain:
he would have been the grandfather of
Manitoba’s men of the pen — and that