The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1973, Page 73

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
71
Art to help out with translation.
“Icelandic is the true Norse lan-
guage,” he explained. “From there it
moves to Norway where it’s been mod-
ified by outside influences.”
“There are about 200,000 people in
the whole country,” continued Mrs.
Bjornsson. “Fishing is our biggest in-
dustry . . . cod, lobster, salmon, and
shrimp. So Icelandic women all have
lots of good seafood recipes.
“There are no minerals but we’re
getting manufacturing plants now . .
things like aluminum, fertilizer and
cement plants. But everything still
really depends on fishing.
“We raise a lot of sheep and have
very good wool. Perhaps you’ve seen
Icelandic sweaters, with the designs.
Our country is wry mountainous, so
we ski and we skate, of course.”
“We know more about Canada than
almost any other country because so
many of our people have moved here.
I think you must have about half as
many Icelanders as we have!” she
laughed.
“In school the children learn Eng-
lish and Danish in the elemetary
grades and then take French, German,
Spanish and Latin, as they choose, in
higher grades.
Iceland was once a very remote part
of the world but now there are more
than 80,000 visitors a year from
around the globe. There are two air-
lines serving the island, one goes from
Luxembourg to New York to Reykja-
vik and the other takes in the British
Isles, Oslo and Copenhagen.
Visitors to the country find a fascin-
ating land of mountains, rivers, pic-
turesque waterfalls, green hillsides
and wondrous rock formations.
If their timing is right, they might
even be on hand for the birth of an-
other baby island.
GREETINGS TG THE ICELANDIC
COMMUNITY GN THEIR
□4th ANNUAL CELEBRATION
C ISLENDINGADAGURINN ]
Philip jii. PefutJJon, Jb.Jl)-
MLA - WELLINGTON