The Icelandic Canadian - 01.08.2009, Qupperneq 35

Vol. 62 #3
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
125
Credit movement as well as her desire to
create a positive image of Icelandic
Canadians as a whole in Manitoba. This
desire is evident in her speeches to Anglo-
Canadian audiences which focussed on the
Icelandic Canadian community’s affiliation
with larger political and cultural traditions
which fit well into and even predated
Western Canadian institutions and notions
of progress and settlement.
My parents came to this country as
pioneer settlers from Iceland- the land
of the Vikings—so I come of a strong
and sturdy race, who had an instinc-
tive love of freedom and were the first
to establish a representative parlia-
ment ... (I) identify myself with the
history and ideals of my race. I too am
a freedom-loving pioneer, with a
strong will to set out in search of a
new and better world.
Her usage of the Icelandic language
and elements of Icelandic culture in her
campaigns poses interesting questions to
traditional historical notions of the cultural
climate of the interwar years. Historians
such as Howard Palmer assert that the
1920s and 1930s resembled a xenophobic
“wilderness of discrimination” in which
anti-migrant sentiment and economic ten-
sions created little room for expressions of
non-Anglo identities. Stewart Henderson’s
recent work on trans-Canadian handicraft
festivals of the 1920s suggests, however,
that the relative prominence of
Scandinavian culture in Manitoba may
have been part of a broader privileging of
Scandinavian ethnicity, suggesting that
interwar Anglo-elites viewed
Scandinavians not as foreign migrants but
as "close cousins." This mentality fit well
into the popular nineteenth and early twen-
tieth century theories of racial hierarchy
which asserted the superiority of northern
European peoples over other European
groups and all racial groups outside of
Europe, or Nordicism. Understanding
Halldorson’s frequent usage of Icelandic
ethnicity and history in her campaigns and
career, then, requires an understanding of
the development of a comparatively open
discourse surrounding Icelandic identity in
Manitoba as part of the growth of
Scandinavian privilege during the 1930s
and 40s.
For the provincial and federal govern-
ments, Icelandic Canadians appeared as a
desirable racial/ ethnic group who would
help to occupy and establish Euro-settler
dominance in the newly redistributed terri-
tory surrounding Lake Winnipeg in the
1870s, an area still populated by several
Aboriginal communities. Although
Icelandic-Canadian settlers, many of
whom were fleeing dire environmental and
economic conditions in Iceland, were com-
plied in the Anglo-Canadian campaign to
remove and relocate Aboriginal
Manitobans, understanding the communi-
ty's larger relationship to the Anglo-
Canadian state and other ethnic Manitoban
communities is complex. While the early
Icelandic Canadian community faced vary-
ing degrees of discrimination, some began
to ascend to positions of prominence in
Manitoba society shortly after the commu-
nity’s initial arrival in 1875. Icelandic
Canadians also entered into the realm of
local and provincial politics relatively early
with the election of the first Icelandic
MLA, Sigtryggur Jonasson’s in 1896.
Historians must understand this degree
inclusion and acceptance of Icelandic cul-
ture and Icelandic Canadian leaders in
Manitoba, however, as a part of extension
of privilege and shifting notions of race
rather than the growth of pluralism. It is in
such instances that scholars of
Scandinavian Canadian history have some-
times failed to reconcile the implications of
Scandinavian privilege, focussing instead
on the negotiation of migrant life and the
stefa k,joi/utesoiA,
ARBORG UNITARIAN CHURCH
GIMLI UNITARIAN CHURCH
9 Rowand Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3J 2N4
Telephone: (204) 889-4746
E-mail: sjonasson@uua.org