The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.2000, Page 9

Voi. 56 #1
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
7
Svavar Gestsson and Gudrun
Agustsdottir
by Betty Jane Wylie
By this time everyone knows that Svavar
Gestsson is the first Icelandic diplomatic rep-
resentative posted in Canada holding the title
Consul General of Iceland and Special Envoy
for Millennium Affairs.
Based in Winnipeg since April 1, 1999, he
and his wife, GuSrun Agustsdottir, might be
taking up residence at the first ever Icelandic
embassy in Ottawa next April but nothing is
official yet. And diplomats never say a defin-
itive (or discouraging) word until everything
is official and formally announced!
These diplomatic dynamos have been
busy since they arrived, officiating at nearly
200 events in this country celebrating the first
European presence in the New World by
Iceland a thousand years ago, the millennium
of Christianity in Iceland and the 125th
anniversary of the Icelandic settlement in
Gimli. Exciting things have been happening
in all the provinces from L’anse aux
Meadows in Newfoundland right across to
British Columbia, all of it produced through
the partnership of Icelanders and Canadians
of Icelandic descent. The Leifur Eiriksson
committee in Iceland and the Government of
Iceland have joined forces with many
Canadian committees and institutions, like
Millennium 125, and all the Icelandic clubs in
Canada, individuals as well as corporations.
The beginning of these celebrations was
marked with a birthday party on April 6 in
Ottawa when the Prime Minister of Iceland,
David Oddsson, gave a statue on behalf of the
Icelandic nation to the Prime Minister of
Canada, Jean Chretien. The statue depicts the
first woman of European descent to give birth
to a child on the American continent.
Neil Bardal, Svavar Gestsson, Skarphepinn Steinarsson from the Prime Minister’s office, Alti
Asmundsson from the Foreign Affairs office and David Gislason at the White Rock, Gimli.