Benedikt Gr
Austurvelli
In diplomacy, momentous decisions are often made not in the heat of battle or even argument but over the dinner table, at celebrations, in nooks and corners, by men (in 1874, it was all men) dressed formally and immaculately. The appearance belies the raging undercurrent, the years of meeting, negotiating, the successes and failures, the vested interests.
King Christian IX arrives in Iceland, not as a conqueror but as an absent and distant king. Iceland has not suffered conquest and war but centuries of neglect and exploitation. It has been seen by the Danes as little more than colony from which some profit might be extracted. However, unlike the natives of South America, they are not enslaved to work in the gold mines. There are no gold mines. There are, for a time, sulphur mines but economics means they are abandoned. There are no diamonds, rubies, no minerals, no vast forests that can be used for buildings ships, no exotic spices. There is fish. There is wool. There is meat pickled and smoked. There are horses. None of the products are in great demand, nor does the size of the population mean that what products there are, mostly woolen goods, can be produced in vast amounts.
In 1874, the Danish king, Christian IX, visited Iceland for the first time. He brought with him a constitution for the Icelanders. It was not a document giving them independence but it was a beginning that would eventually lead to Iceland
Gypsy Clothes
In Iceland, turf houses
This story probably has a thousand variants. It has been told by many people over a long period of time.
Like many folk tales it is about good and bad, about reward and punishment. It very definitely does not adhere to the belief that was current a while ago that
MAY LONG
By Ken Kristjanson
The year was 1950.The month, May. The winter had been long and the spring wet. Manitoba and Winnipeg were experiencing the worst flood in history due to the lack of planning by all levels of Government. Consequently, Gimli and District were crammed to the rafters with people escaping their flooded homes.
For paper boys it was
The Madness of Suburbia
There is, today, in The National Post, an article on how long commutes are killing commuters. Not in car crashes but by forcing them to sit for long periods of time.
I
Social classes in Iceland
Embracing our heritage is hard work. It requires effort on our part. Putting on a plastic Viking helmet, drinking an Icelandic beer and gobbling up rullupylsa doesn
The Women Who Stayed in Winnipeg
The lady of the house, 1890. If your great great amma worked as a domestic she worked for this lady or her friends.
When the 285 Icelandic settlers of 1875 arrived in Winnipeg, around 50 of them who were able to find work stayed in the city. Little did they know how good a decision that would become.
What The Bear Said (INl Reads)
The short story, What The Bear Said, takes place in New Iceland. The settlers have lived there long enough that they have spread out from the first settlement at Gimli and have built cabins. In Iceland, these people survived by raising sheep and dairy cows plus going cod fishing once the hay harvest was over.
Something that many people don
Embrace your heritage Episode 10
