Lögberg-Heimskringla - 01.04.2019, Side 8

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8 • Lögberg-Heimskringla • April 1 2019
My first book,
Bloodflowers, was
published in 1973. I
came back to Manitoba for the
summer and went to a number
of bookstores in Winnipeg
expecting to see copies on their
shelves. No. No copies. When
I talked to the person in charge
at Eaton’s, he said that a new
ordering system was being
put in place and it wouldn’t
have any Canadian books on
it. We were just going to go
back to having books from
England and the United States.
I had put a lot of effort into
Bloodflowers. I wasn’t going to
roll over. If bookstores weren’t
going to order, I’d sell books
myself. One of the places I
asked to sell my book was the
Arborg Bakery. They said yes.
My books went on sale beside
the bread.
I went from house to
house in Gimli, knocking on
doors, just like the Watkins
salesman. And I set up a card
table at the Gimli Park during
Íslendingadagurinn along with
a sign saying modest things like
“Buy the best book in Canada.”
And I set up my table and sign
in front of Paul and Margaret
Olson’s fish shop at the dock.
All those efforts paid off and
what gave me the nerve to
make those efforts was the fact
that I grew up in the Icelandic
Canadian community. I knew
how much they supported their
authors.
I also went to Ethel
Howard and told her my story.
She was a Gimli reporter for
the local paper. She wrote a
column about how Eaton’s
wasn’t interested in Canada or
Canadians anymore. Boy, did
that get a reaction. A phone call
from a manager saying there
must be some mistake. “Of
course, we’ll sell your book.
We love Canadian books.”
The fact that American
books sold better than
Canadian books wasn’t because
they were better written. It
was because the American
companies were larger and
had more money. That money
paid for advertising and it also
paid for special placement in
bookstores.
I went knocking on doors
with confidence because
Iceland has a long history with
the telling of stories. There are
the sagas and the rímur – those
versifying, rhyming narratives
told in the baðstofa at night
as people knitted and did
daily chores. The sagas were
printed by hand on vellum –
that’s calfskin. The skin of 113
calves was used to create the
225 leaves of Flateyjarbók.
That farmer really wanted to
have that book. One hundred
and thirteen calves plus the
pay of whoever copied the
saga by hand. Bloodflowers
wasn’t nearly that expensive.
It cost $3.50. However, it
was a written down story and
in the Icelandic Canadian
community written down
stories are considered worthy.
In our community, books like
Stina Benson’s (Kristofferson)
Tanya had a huge effect on me.
She made it possible to believe
that ordinary people I knew
could write real books.
It was Gimli culture that
I grew up in. We ate pickerel
fillets. No pickerel in Iceland.
We ate a lot of rabbit. No
rabbits in Iceland. We played
hockey. We curled. We
attended Ukrainian weddings.
We cut lawns for campers.
We delivered newspapers.
We had wiener roasts on the
beach. In the 1950s, with the
arrival of Harold Sigmar, our
church services changed from
Icelandic to English.
Yet, somehow we kept
the dream of an Icelandic
community alive. What
helped hold the community
together were our publications:
Lögberg, Heimskringla, The
Icelandic Canadian. There
is a proud history there. “The
first Icelandic newspaper in
North America was Framfari
(Progress), published in New
Iceland between 1877 and 1880.
Between 1879 and 1910, eight
other publications originated
in Gimli. In 1886 the Icelandic
newspaper Heimskringla (The
World) was founded. Lögberg
(The Law Rock) was founded
in 1887, partly in opposition
to Heimskringla. Both were
published in Icelandic. They
were amalgamated in 1959
into Lögberg-Heimskringla,
published in English.”
Writers abounded. When
I moved to Winnipeg to go to
university, I got to meet writers
like Will Kristjanson and Walter
Lindal and newspaper editors
like Caroline Gunnarson. They
put me on the board of The
Icelandic Canadian. I went to
meetings and got my first taste
of mysost and got to think and
talk about writers and editors
and publications.
However, for me the most
important storytellers were
my mother and father and
family and friends who came
for coffee and sat around the
kitchen table. It was here that
people recounted stories of
disaster and triumph on Lake
Winnipeg, where I heard
not just fishing stories from
people like my great-uncle,
Frank Bristow, but also from
John Keller leaving school
at thirteen, walking barefoot
from Fraserwood to protect his
shoes, and getting a job helping
load boats at the Gimli dock.
My parents’ door was always
unlocked and people came
through it already talking. My
mother, although she was Irish,
served vínarterta, rosettes, and
pönnukökur. When you live in
New Iceland, you do like the
Icelanders.
A story of mine, “The
Couch,” was given a centre
spread in The Saturday
Evening Post. It was a slightly
fictionalized account of a trip
from my father’s fish camp at
Humbug Bay to Riverton. Rain
had poured down for days.
The road was a muddy mess
of ruts. My mother, father, Red
Magnusson, and our collie,
Laddie, were in a truck that
was loaded high with supplies.
They bulled their way through
soft spots but at one long
stretch, the truck went down
to its axels and nothing they
did would get it out. A heavy
rain started again. It was as
far back to the camp as it
was to Riverton. They started
walking. The mud clung to
their boots. They pried it off
with staffs my father cut from
the bush. It started to get dark.
They went into the bush and
my mother said my father
and Red shoved her down
between two saplings so when
she fell asleep, she wouldn’t
topple over. When she woke,
Red was lying on his back
with the rain pouring down
on him. They started walking
again. Eventually, they heard a
tractor and the driver rescued
them, fed them, and pulled out
their truck. When they reached
Riverton, my father said,
“Should we stop for something
to eat?” My mother was mud
from head to foot, soaking
wet. She said, “Don’t you dare.
Keep going.”
I changed a few things in
the rewriting of the story, but
it epitomizes some of the basic
rules of storytelling. Write
what you know about. Write
what you care about. You either
have to know your material or
you have to do the research so
you do know it.
That was taught to me
with the publication of
THE RULES OF STORYTELLING
W.D. Valgardson
Victoria, BC
“Write what you
know about. Write
what you care about.
You either have to
know your material
or you have to do the
research so you do
know it.”
“
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Our Family Album 1919-2019
Name
Address
City/Town Prov/State
Post/ZIP Code Tel:

CONTACT THE INL OF NA OFFICE
103-94 First Avenue, Gimli, MB R0C 1B1 • 204-642-5897 • inl@mymts.net
(or the INL Chapter/Society nearest to you)
OR, within North America, clip and mail this order form. Send to:
Lögberg-Heimskringla, 835 Marion Street, Winnipeg, MB, R2J 0K6
Yes, I’d like to order _______ (qty) of the 2019 Our Family Album 1919-2019 calendar from
L-H. Please send to:
I enclose $12.00 plus $3.00 CDN / $3.00 USD / $8.00 INT shipping for each.
Make cheques payable to: Lögberg-Heimskringla, Inc.
2019 INL of NA Calendar now available
ONLY
$12
PLUS SHIPPING
Our Family Album 1919-2019
PHOTO: STEFAN JONASSON
W.D. Valgardson speaking at the Arborg Þorrablót