The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.1968, Blaðsíða 23

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
2 i
A TOAST TO CANADA
Address by the HONOURABLE STERLING R. LYON, Q.C., at Islendingadagurinn or The
Icelandic Festival of Manitoba at Gimli, Monday, August 5, 1968.
Greetings to the Queen of the
Mountains and Mr. Sigurgeirsson.
I consider it a real pleasure to par-
ticipate in these festivities today; have
the honour to sit in the Legislature
with five M.L.A’s of Icelandic origin.
To me, the Town of Gimli and the
Icelandic community of this province
are no strangers largely because of the
continuous and enlightening exposure
to its culture I have had over the past
ten years from one of your principal
sons, my friend and colleague, The
Honourable Dr. George Johnson, Min-
ister of Education.
I note with great satisfaction that
your newest school has honoured him
by adopting his name. This is most
fitting. For now and with greater im-
pact through the years the rich and
varied contribution of this man to
our public life will surely mark him
among the equal of any of the great
Canadians which your race has given
our land.
He, in turn, has paid the highest
tribute to you and your forefathers by
deporting himself at all times with
rare distinction and by the intelligence,
integrity, broad humanity and wise
leadership which have been the hall-
mark of his decade of public office.
Here, indeed, is a son of Iceland who
has brought everlasting credit to his
race, his family and himself in the
annals of this province.
Dr. Johnson, I know, considers that
his education of me as a student of
Icelandic-Canadian culture is in-
complete. One of my children, he
would say, must ultimately marry into
the community to seal the bond. Al-
though they are a bit young yet to
contemplate such binding contracts,
that, I can assure you, would be a proud
acquisition to any Canadian family tie.
Meanwhile, he has made me aware of
the contribution of the early Icelandic
settlers to this area and our province.
And today, it is with some share of
your justifiable pride that I join you
in paying tribute to those original
adventurers who found along the
shores of our great Lake Winnipeg,
the timber — hay — the fish — and the
farmland which inspired in them the
vision, hope and expectation to name
it New Iceland.
My own forebears, following the
same water route from Minnesota,
came west only one year after the
original Icelandic migration of 1875.
So I share with you today the marvel
and the pride of ancestry in the stead-
fastness, the dedication and the will
to overcome adversity which was the
common characteristics of these early
pioneers.
Floods, snow and pestilence they
endured and overcame. There was no
substitute then—as there is not now—
for hard work — for suffering — and
for bereavement — and for the strength
of character which these trials and
stresses built and undergirded in a
new people in a new land.
The land, the water and the
elements they fought and eventually
tamed, gave them back, at first meagre
and, later, bountiful returns in food,
shelter, security and the contentment
of the family circle.
But perhaps more than most other
groups of immigrants, the Icelandic
pioneers brought with them a dedica-
tion to and long experience in — order-
ly, democratic government.
This no doubt was in the mind of
Governor-General Lord Dufferin when