The Icelandic Canadian - 01.02.2007, Blaðsíða 7

Vol. 60 #4
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
133
only a few had expressed those sentiments
at the time and nobody thought so any-
more. I knew in general terms the difficult
conditions at the time, but it was not until
the spring of 2006 when, after attending the
Sixth Consular Conference in Reykjavk, I
traveled with my brother Sigtryggur, yes
the same name as our relative Sigtryggur
Jonasson, around Iceland with a stop at the
Hofsos Emigration Centre, that the true
magnitude of the calamitous conditions
was driven home to me. Iceland simply
could not sustain one hundred thousand
people, so if those twenty thousand had
not left, how many thousands would have
perished from starvation?
Not least in my memory bank was
meeting Guttormur Guttormsson.
The four of us were invited to the
home of the poet laureate where we spent a
wonderful afternoon. I so much enjoyed
him that the following afternoon, I excused
myself from a planned excursion and went
back to Guttormur with a flask, and we
spent the afternoon, sipping and talking
and from that visit I have a treasured
memento, his Bondadomr book of poetry
inscribed and dedicated to me.
My second time in Canada was with
my wife Gudrun Ulu, son Haukur Havar
(four years-old) and my sister Margret,
during the 1968 Islendingadagurinn in
Gimli, where we pitched our tent at Halla
kofi. I had met Harold F. Bjarnason, Halli
to us, in the fall of 1964 when I returned to
do graduate work in economics at the
University of Wisconsin where he was
doing graduate work in agricultural eco-
nomics.
The third time in Canada was in
Saskatoon in 1970. Before settling back in
Iceland, we thought we would like to work
a couple of years and travel in Canada. At
Halli’s suggestion I wrote to the
Universities in Winnipeg, Brandon and
Saskatoon. At that time the chairman of the
Economics and Political Science
Department in Saskatoon was Leo
Kristjanson who had done his doctorate at
the University of Wisconsin. He phoned
me the same day he got my letter and that
is how we ended up in this strange sound-
ing city and province that we had never
heard off, could barely pronounce and had
no idea where this was.
Like I said, we were going to be in
Canada for two years, and here we are still
thirty six years later.
We soon found out there are
Icelanders other than in Manitoba. In
Saskatoon we were embraced and wel-
comed, besides Leo and Jean Kristjanson,
by Laxdals, Kolbinsons, Goodmans,
Gudmundsons, Skaftfelds, Isfords, Gullets,
Thorarinssons and so on. We spent four
enjoyable years in Saskatoon where I
taught economics under Leo’s chairman-
ship. In 1974 we moved to Regina where I
took the position of economist with the
Saskatchewan Natural Products Marketing
Council again under chairman Leo.
It was with some trepidation that we
moved to Regina where we did not know a
soul. However, no sooner had we moved
than we met Hafsteinn and Lillian
Bjarnason, parents of Lillian Vilborg.
Fortuitously we had bought a house two
minutes drive away. They immediately
adopted us and became our family and
closest friends.
In our early years in Regina, there was
a goodly contingent of Vestur Islendingar
in the city. Besides Hafsteinn and Lillian
there were: Johannsons, Thorsteinsons,
Isfords, Breckmans, Holms, Jullussons,
Kristjansons, Fredricksons, Dean and
Eleanor Oltean, the painter and a poet and
granddaughter of Sveinbjorn
Sveinbjornson, composer of the Icelandic
national anthem.
We did many things together, such as
celebrating 17th of June at the Olteans farm
with up to 80 people enjoying games and
barbecued lamb on a spit.
If we had not been to Gimli for visits
and stays with Brian Larus Jakobson and
family and Fred and Rosemary Isford, we
would have concluded that Lundar was the
fountainhead of Vestur Islendingar, as an
inordinately large portion of our friends
hail from Lundar. One bright and sunny
summer day in the late seventies we count-
ed twenty five or so Lundarites on our
backyard deck.
One of the more memorable Gimli vis-
its was in 1987 when our friend Halli gave