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Waiting for Spring
There is a time when the year turns. The winter has grown old. The snow has piled high, layer upon layer, its strata revealing blizzards and heavy snowfalls. The roadsides have piles of snow scooped...
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The Women in My Life
They were always there. They were there before I was born. They were there after I was born. They were part of my world as much as the sun, the moon and the stars. My mother was seventeen when I was...
View ArticleThe Bard of Riverton
In 1961-62 I lived in Riverton, Manitoba. It was a memorable year. The one thing I didn’t do was meet Guttormur. I regret that. I was already writing. Already wanted to be a published author. I knew...
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What They Stole
I grew up in Gimli, Manitoba. Gimli is regarded as the heart of New Iceland. It is, in many ways, the focal point for the individuals of Icelandic extraction in North America and for the various...
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My Vinarterta Heritage
Heritage is a funny sort of thing. It turns up in strange places and in strange ways. Yesterday, I took cousin Dilla and JO for supper to Amma’s Tea Room and Gift Shop. During the summer Amma’s is...
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The Arborg Thorrablot
It was cold. Not a little cold. The kind of cold that if your car breaks down on the highway, fifteen minutes later you’ve become an ice sculpture. There was drifting snow swirling across the...
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Atli at Arborg
Atli and Þruður receiving a gift of appreciation at the Arborg Thorrablot. There is a measuring cup of water on the table. I’m a pessimist by nature and when I look at it I automatically think, that...
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West Coast Icelanders: Osland
The Skeena Valley I have wonderful books in my library. These wonderful books aren’t necessarily what you might imagine them to be—the great works of literature bound in leather. My great books are...
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A World Beyond Imagining
Masset Haida village There are a lot of people coming to the INL conference in Seattle. So many, in fact, that it is sold out. Because the conference is being held in Seattle, the focus, of course,...
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Who Were The West Coast Icelanders?
Some of the Icelanders who came to the West Coast went logging. They came from a country where trees were scrub birch a few feet high. What do you think they thought and felt when they saw scenes like...
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Conquering Europe
He tried to conquer Europe and failed. 3,500,000 to 6,000,000 dead. He tried to conquer Europe and failed. 20,000,000 dead He tried to conquer Europe and failed. 60,000,000–78,000,000 dead It takes a...
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West Coast Icelandic Children
In talking about the Icelandic settlers, we most often relate stories of their adult trials and troubles and not much is said about the children who were living the same life with them. That’s a shame...
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INL Convention Seattle: Day 1
After weeks of beautiful, sunny weather, it rained today just as the INL convention in Seattle was getting started with a bus tour. It turned out that it didn’t matter. Jonas Thor was our tour guide...
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Odin’s Eagle
For a very long time in Iceland there was little art. It wasn’t because Icelanders were not creative or artistic but grinding poverty where people lay in bed because there was nothing to eat, did not...
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Carving the future
Jón Adólf Steinólfsson was born in Reykjavik. He has studied wood carving in Icelandic, Germany and England. Jón follows an old tradition for he often works with driftwood. Driftwood from Siberia is...
View ArticleINL Convention Seattle: Day 3
I’ve never been to an INL convention like it. It’s been all over the place re types of speakers and topics. I think people are discombobulated in a good way. They’ve had their conceptions un-concepted,...
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On To Victory: Alene Moris
You could be forgiven if, seeing Alene Moris for the first time, especially at something like the Icelandic National League annual conference, if you dismissed her as another little old lady who spent...
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Icelanders To The Rescue
In her talk at the INL conference, Trish Baer discussed the work she has done over the last five years on images from the Eddas. Old Scandinavian history from the time of the Vikings was lost in...
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INL 2013
Getting to the INL conference in Seattle this year was easy. Participants could drive from Vancouver or White Rock. For those of us in Victoria, harbour to harbour on the Clipper was two hours and...
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Saving Viking History
Okay, here’s the deal. We don’t really know much about the Vikings. How come? Because they didn’t write things down. They told stories rather than read them. They were travelling all over the place...
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