The Icelandic Canadian - 01.11.2006, Síða 41

Vol. 60 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
127
Contributors
CONSUL GENERAL ATLI ASMUNDSSON has held that post since January 2004.
From 1995 he worked in the Office of the Foreign Minister of Iceland as an Advisor and
Press Secretary and before that Consul Asmundsson was invoved in politics in Iceland for
30 years,working for the Progressive Party. Among his responsibilities in the Foreign
Ministry was overseeing the strengthening of the ties with people of Icelandic descent in
North America and he had visited Manitoba several times before being posted here. His
wife Thrudur Helgadottir is very active in the different activities of the Consulate.
C. LESLEY BIGGS teaches in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at the
University of Saskatchewan. Pier research interests include studies of the body, the histo-
ry of midwifery in Canada, and alternative healers, particularly chiropractors.
NELSON GERRARD of Eyrarbakki, near Hnausa on the west shore of Lake
Winnipeg, now works full time as a writer, historical researcher, and genealogist specializ-
ing in Icelandic immigration to North America. His current projects include Silent Flashes:
1870-1910, a book on photography among the Icelandic settlers in Canada and the United
States, and Gimlunga Saga I-III, a three-volume history of the pioneers of the Gimli area.
He has also spent several summers assisting at the Icelandic Emigration visitor centre at
Hofsos in Northern Iceland.
NORMA GUTTORMSSON is the daughter of the late Dr. Petur Guttormsson and
Herdis Salin Reykdal. She has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree and a Master of
Education. In April 1991, she went to Inuvik for a year and nursed at the Inuvik, NWT
Regional General Hospital. Norma lives in North Vancouver, BC where she is currently
teaching English as a Second Language. She has four children and four grandchildren.
GAIL HALLDORSON is a retired high school librarian who lives in Sandy Hook,
Manitoba
ELVA SIMUNDSSON holds a graduate degree in library science from the University
of British Columbia and is retired from a career as a research librarian with the Government
of Canada. She currently resides in Gimli, Manitoba.
STELLA STEPHANSON, along with her husband, Eric Stephanson (now deceased),
has had a long-standing interest in the history of Icelanders and other settler communities
in Saskatchewan. With her husband, Mrs. Stephanson is a co-founder of the Vatnabyggd
Icelandic Club of Saskatchewan. She is the mother of five children and six grandchildren.
GUNNAR THORVALDSON was raised in Oak Point, MB. In 1961 he was trans-
ferred to Edmonton, AB. There he attended a meeting of the INL and was elected
President of their chapter and has remained active. He has travelled extensively and also had
the pleasure of spending an entire year in Iceland (1987).
SARA WESELAKE is a fourth year genetics honours student at the University of
Manitoba. Her great grandparents Pall and Susanna Gudmundsson emigrated from
Akureyri, Iceland to north of Gimli, Manitoba in 1913. She wrote this paper for a course at
the University of Manitoba, taught by Dr. Birna Bjarnadottir called Contemporary
Canadian Icelandic Literature.