Sigrun Davidsdottir: combining journalism and fiction

Posted on February 29, 2012 by william

Sigrun Davidsd

Saving or heritage: clothes

Posted on February 28, 2012 by william

Icelandic food through history

Posted on February 27, 2012 by william

Trish Baer and Sigrun Davidsdottir (photo credit, WDValgardson)

Sigrun Davidsd

Saving Our Heritage

Posted on February 26, 2012 by william

As an identifiable community in the Canadian mosaic, we face what every other community faces, assimilation, integration and a growing loss of our immigrant culture. We

RUBBER ICE

Posted on February 25, 2012 by william

Guest article by Ken Kristjanson.

In the late fall Lake Winnipeg, like an old duck hunter, gets tired. Slowly the waves reaching the shore decrease in intensity and the great lake

Serendipitous Cooking

Posted on February 24, 2012 by william

I think I love cooking because both my mother and father loved cooking. The sweet and sour pickerel cheeks, the baked whitefish, the pickerel fillets, were all made with love.

My father came in from the lake, cleaned the fish, filleted it, if the pickerel were big enough, cut out the cheeks. The whitefish usually came as a gift from someone fishing further north on Lake Winnipeg. They made the various pickerel dishes together but it was my mother who made the bread stuffing for the whitefish, then baked it.

My parents were adventurous cooks.

Great great amma shopping, Reykjavik, 1874

Posted on February 23, 2012 by william

So, your Great Great amma Runa or Helga or Sigrun has convinced your great great grandfather, Gunnar or Helgi or Bjarni, to take her with him when he goes to Reykjavik with all the products they have amassed over the year. The trip may take days. They

Shopping In Reykjavik, 1874

Posted on February 22, 2012 by william

If your ancestors lived in Reykjavik or, more likely, visited there to trade, who would they have dealt with? Who were the people who decided what they’d be paid for their precious trade goods and what they’d paid for the supplies they needed to survive for a year?

Richard Burton, 1874, gives a good picture of who made up the business establishment.

Since the trading season was the summer when the weather was at its best, the traders would all be in Reykjavik but, not surprisingly, most of them left for Copenhagen as the trading season ended. From RB