The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.1977, Page 15

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
13
afternoon sitting in the living room of
the spacious bungalow of Hallgrimur
Helgason, composer, overlooking the
Olfus River near Selfoss and listening to
his taped recording of “Sandy Bar”. It
sounded better than the original
performance two years ago in
Winnipeg’s Centennial Concert Hall.
There is another memory—that of an
afternoon spent at Hraunkot, a
farmstead situated at the edge of the
Adaldal lava fields a few miles to the
south of the fishing town of Husavik.
This area, South Thingeyarsysla,
contains many sights worthy of note,
including that fabulous lake, Myvatn.
But Hraunkot is a bit off the beaten
path. Leaving the main road, one travels
through an area of woods before striking
the open stretches of lava. The
farmstead lies on the boundary between
the bare lava fields and the marshes that
stretch toward the Skjalvanda Fljot
(River) at the base of the mountains to
the west. The mingling of woods and
lava, of meadow and marsh, with the
broad river and mountains as a
backdrop, creates a scene of rare beauty.
This is the place where my father was
born, from which my grandfather and
his family migrated to start a life in the
New World. One wonders at the motives
that might induce someone to leave a
spot so pleasing to the eye to exchange it
for the flat wheatfields of Pembina,
North Dakota. Economic factors must
have been the overriding ones. It
couldn’t have been the scenery.
When my grandfather left to seek his
future in a strange land, one of his
daughters remained behind. This aunt
of mine was a young bride at the time
and her future lay in the land of her
birth. It was with her daughters—my
cousins—that I visited that Sunday
afternoon. We were strands of the same
fabric, as it were, following our destinies
on separate continents. And as we sat
eating bread and Icelandic smoked meat
and Icelandic pancakes and
speaking—much of the time—in the
language of our forefathers, it occurred
to me that perhaps the strands had not
separated all that much after all.
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