The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.1981, Síða 8

6
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
AUTUMN, 1981
Australia, South Africa, and South America.
As secretary of the Icelandic National
League for eighteen years and as its cultural
representative, she visited regularly all the
chapters of the League not only in Manitoba
but elsewhere in Canada and in the United
States. She took an active part in the cam-
paign which resulted in the establishment of
the chair of Icelandic Language and Litera-
ture at the University of Manitoba. She has
given hundreds of talks at meetings, on the
radio and on TV. She has written scores of
articles on Iceland, Icelandic history and
literature. In her articles regarding the Ice-
landic pioneers in North America there is
much information that would have been
completely lost but for her.
A singular honor came to her when she
was invited in May, 1973, to attend a pres-
tigious international conference in Min-
neapolis to overview and assess the future
possibilities of Scanpresence (Scandinavian
Presence in America), the only Canadian
representatives present being Freda and
Prof. Haraldur Bessason.
Another of her ‘household gods’ is dra-
matics. In 1953 she was awarded the Mani-
toba Drama League Scholarship for a six-
week course at the Banff School of Fine
Arts. In 1969 she was honored with a life
membership in the Manitoba Drama
League. Unfortunately in an article of this
nature, it is necessary to confine references
to her extensive participation in the field of
dramatics to three highlights in her career.
She directed and took a leading part in a
play from Arborg, Manitoba, which won
the top award in the first Manitoba Drama
Festival.
Another highlight was the invitation in
1955 from a committee in Utah to write a
pageant for the celebration of the centennial
of the arrival of the first Icelandic settlers in
that state, and to come down to Utah to
produce it. This event was written up by Art
Reykdal in the Icelandic Canadian. Mr.
Reykdal described the pageant as magnifi-
cent, and the most outstanding event in the
festival.
In 1955-56, sponsored by the Jon Sigurds-
son chapter of the IODE, Freda toured with
a play IN THE WAKE OF THE STORM by
Lauga Geir, which she produced, directed
and in which she took the leading part. It
was a prize-winning play in a contest spon-
sored by the Jon Sigurdsson Chapter. It is
based on the experiences of the first Ice-
landic pioneers in North Dakota. The
author’s comments follow: “The beauti-
fully sensitive quality of your acting of
Valborg was thrilling and a delight all
through. You have a great gift, and are able
to hold the audience in your spell by sheer
personality and a sensitive projection of
mood.” The following was the part of a
critique by Mrs. Irene Craig, well-known
critic and adjudicator: “The acting in the
last scene between Mrs. Danielson and Mr.
Alvin Blondal reached a peak of artistry. It
is one of the best things I have seen on the
stage, expecially in view of the fact that the
dialogue, if handled by a less gifted and
experienced actress, could so easily have
been cheapened by oversentimentality .
People of Icelandic descent constitute one
of the smallest ethnic groups in Canada and
in the United States, but they are striving to
make some of their cherished cultural tradi-
tions a part of the emerging fabric of Cana-
dianism and Americanism. To this end
Freda Danielson made a noteworthy contri-
bution.
Freda Danielson: homemaker, devoted
wife, mother, educator, editor of The Ice-
landic Canadian magazine, president of the
Icelandic Canadian Club, Maid of the
Mountains at the Icelandic Festival, adjudi-
cator at drama and speech festivals, writer
of dramas, director of dramatic presenta-
tions, actress, organizer of study groups and
evening schools, organizer of children’s
choral groups, writer of succinct prose,