The Icelandic Canadian - 01.11.2006, Side 29

Vol. 60 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
1 15
to know anything about Gudrun
Goodman except Nelson Gerrard, a histo-
rian of Icelandic descent living in
Winnipeg, who speaks and writes Icelandic
fluently. Over the phone with Stella, Mr.
Gerrard translated an entry in the 1922
Almanak26 marking Gudrun Goodman’s
death.
Stella and I are bubbling over with
excitement. Stella is delighted by her finds
and so am I. A few more pieces of the
puzzle have been put in place. Yet when I
ask Stella for the full citation (i.e. the date
and publisher), she doesn’t know. Not
bound by the institutional requirements of
academia, these details are unimportant to
Stella. I feel in a bind. Without seeming
to be ungrateful, I need to be able to docu-
ment my/our sources (whose story is this
anyway?). I press a little and she reveals
that the date is 1922. I make a mental note
to call Nelson Gerrard and find out the rest
of the pertinent information. But I also
realize that I will have to get a direct trans-
lation since I cannot ‘reliably’ trust a sum-
mary of this entry.
This incident reveals at the micro level
the clash of knowledge claims—between
academic and local knowledge. In the
name of rigour, academic knowledge is
developed within a particular set of struc-
tures (peer-reviewed journals), carries its
own conventions, and epistemological
assumptions. Through these parameters,
academic knowledge defines what consti-
tutes ‘valid’ and ‘reliable’ and sets itself
apart from the knowledge of the everyday.
The knowledge that Stella brought to the
project was of a different order. This local
knowledge is based in part on Stella’s expe-
riences living in a community for over sev-
enty years; and in part, on her relationship
to her husband who was actively engaged
in the reclamation of Icelandic culture.
This local knowledge also draws on folk-
lore that has been passed down from one
generation to the next—some of which has
been encoded within texts such as that
written by Walter Lindal referred to earli-
er, the Almanak, and local histories.
Recalling the Pioneer Spirit
One warm summer evening in 2001,
Stella and I are having dinner and the con-
versation turns to the research that we are
doing together. For much of the night,
Stella reminisces about her travels with Eric
in search of his Icelandic roots, and Stella
tells some great stories of chance encoun-
ters with individuals who knew an ances-
tor; the kindness of strangers who invited
them in for a meal; the discovery of an
unmarked Icelandic cemetery, as well as
the location of the burial site of one of
Eric’s sisters who had died at a young age.
Stella recalls these times with great fond-
ness; the long drives afforded them a time
of intimacy, freed temporarily from the
demands of work and family. As Stella
talks, it becomes clear to me that she is
doing this project, not just because she
loves me and wants to help me out, but also
our travels and conversations revive warm
memories of her relationship with her hus-
band. The act of remembering allows
Stella to keep her husband’s spirit alive.
My conversations with Stella are a
reminder that professional historians (i.e.
those trained in the academy) are not the
only people who ‘do history.’ Individuals
and communities are often engaged in a
search for their roots, preserving their his-
tories, and inserting them into the present.
Genealogical investigation is a popular
form of doing history although its cultural
significance and interest in it has waxed and
waned over the centuries.27 Originally,
genealogies were used to establish lines of
descent as a way of securing title and land
through inheritance, or to provide a pedi-
gree and confer elite status. Since the
1960s, the appeal of genealogy has broad-
ened to include a wide spectrum of classes
and ethnic groups across the Western
industrialized world. Genealogical activity
has not only been democratized but its
function has shifted from “the legitimiza-
tion of exclusive status to a concern with
emergent identity.”28 In contemporary
genealogy, the search for roots encourages
individuals to locate their own biographies
within the context of their family history.
Laying claim to a collective heritage,
Hareven argues, enables contemporary
individuals to connect with larger historical
events and to forge a sense of political and