The Icelandic Canadian - 01.11.2006, Síða 28

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Vol. 60 #3
I 14
nity found ways to commemorate her
life—on her grave stone, in an obituary,
and in the local/family histories. These
local sites of memory highlight the impor-
tance of vernacular culture for doing
women’s history. In the absence of an
archive—the site for the authoritative stor-
ing and inscription of memory20—local
commemorative practices provide a way
into recovering the stories of ordinary
women and men. But through the process
of doing this research, it became apparent
that each site of memory generated a differ-
ent account of this remarkable woman.
These nuanced inflections of meaning rein-
force Lambek and Antze’s view of memo-
ry as a practice. “Memories”, they argue,
“are never simply records of the past, but
are interpretative reconstructions that bear
the imprint of local narrative conventions,
cultural assumptions, discursive formations
and practices, and social contexts of recall
and commemoration.”21
Central to the stories generated about
Gudrun Goodman is the symbol of the
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pioneer. This vernacular symbol is found-
ed upon a tension between “people’s desire
both to honor and break their ancestral and
familial ties of descent and to express their
consent to a new culture of individualism
and new political structures.”22 But, as
Bodnar also found cultural leaders attempt
to co-opt this symbol as builders and
defenders of the nation. In the case of
Gudrun Goodman, the distinction between
vernacular and official discourses is not
easily disentangled. The identity of
Icelandic Canadians as pioneers was con-
stituted through the twin processes of the
remembering of immigration and settle-
ment and the active ‘forgetting’ of colo-
nization. Through local commemorative
practices, Icelandic Canadians were imbri-
cated in the liberal order framework,23 not
only in affirming Saskatchewan/Canada as
a pluralistic society, predicated on the hard
work of impoverished immigrants, but also
constitutive of that image of the nation-
state. At the same time, maintaining famil-
ial ties by honouring one’s ancestors and
the continued assertion of a unique
Icelandic identity as a way of maintaining
community, contradicts the culture of indi-
vidualism which sustained liberal rule and
the nation-state of Canada.24
Part 1: “Doing History”
I called Stella. “Have you heard of
this midwife, Gudrun Goodman?” “No,”
she replies, “but I’ll ask around.” Stella
and her husband, Eric (now deceased)
Stephanson, were and are active members
of the Vatnabyggd Icelandic Club of
Saskatchewan that they helped found
twenty years ago. They were instrumental
in reviving and retaining Icelandic cultural
traditions and customs in the Quill Lakes
area in Saskatchewan. They are well-
known not only locally but in Icelandic
communities across Canada, and they
know everyone. As a result, Stella became
my entry point into the Canadian Icelandic
community. Based on her local knowl-
edge,25 she knew whom to ask, and because
of her status within the community, indi-
viduals were willing to help out.
Stella called me back several days later.
She had checked around and nobody seems