Military Bunkers in Reykjavik

While staying in Reykjavik this summer, a good friend of mine took me on a hike to the Pearl, the cemetery near by where Canadian soldiers from WWII are buried, and through the "Reykjavik forest". I was skeptical about the forest, but was pleasantly surprised by the fact that getting lost would not be solved by just standing up, as the joke goes. I honestly did not feel like I was in Iceland anymore. There were trees, and rabbits, and then he showed me the underground bunkers, built by the British during WWII to protect fuel tanks, now turned to teenage hang outs. Hidden history just minutes from the bustle of the city.

viene el sol

viene el sol

in a golden shimmer across the water

rippling from horizon to shore.

black, blue clouds, brilliant light

sea and sky merge and extend forever

sunset or sunrise?

which side of the planet?

across to the unknown

the midnight sun

and its 

unimagineable wonders

Knowing My History: Part 3

On Coming Home

I knew I had to visit Iceland and I wanted it to be a meaningful trip, not just a tourist holiday. I remembered hearing about the Snorri Program in high school, so I looked it up online. The age cut off was 28 and I was 26. I was done university, I did have a pretty good job, but my commitments overall were minimal. It felt like a "now or never" moment.

Guðriður Þorbjarnardóttir and her son Snorri Þorfinnsson, the first European to be born in North America, in Glaumbær.

The purpose of the Snorri Program is to connect Western Icelanders in the US and Canada with Iceland, to learn about language, culture, and history. The goal is to get us excited about our history and our ancestors and to keep the connections between our countries alive.

So, in 2014 I participated in the Snorri Program. I spent two weeks in Reykjavik with 13 other Western Icelanders between the ages of 18 and 28 from all across the US and Canada. We took language lessons in the mornings and interesting cultural lectures in the afternoons. Our evenings and weekends were filled with fun activities from touring museums to going bowling to watching movies to white water rafting.

The next three weeks of the program were my favourite weeks. Each participant was given genealogy information on their ancestors who left Iceland, based from the information we were able to provide in our applications. The Snorri Foundation and their partners then did the research to find living relatives in Iceland who were available and willing to host us in their homes for three weeks while we volunteered in their communities. 

I spent my time in the East Fjords volunteering in a daycare. My family was extremely welcoming and generous. They drove me to see many towns, and pools, and tourist sites. They found the farms where our common ancestor was born, grew up, and then left Iceland from, and drove me to those places so I could walk on the ground she had once walked on.

It is difficult to put into words what I felt standing on those farms. To know so much and yet so little about my great-great-great grandmother. Would she have dreamed that her great-great-great granddaughter would one day go back to her birthplace? To meet the descendants of her father and his wife? Those descendants who never even knew she had existed, let alone gone to America?

There was so much history to absorb and yet so much familiarity. My senses knew where I was, even if I did not possess living memories of the places. 

It was a homecoming journey in many ways and I felt welcome everywhere I went, but it was not really my home. Being in breathtaking natural Iceland was incredible, but something inside me was tugging, and telling me that my home was in Canada. Seven of my ancestors had left in search of new beginnings, and my life is so good in Canada, why would I want to leave? I will not say that I would never live in Iceland, I would stay if the right opportunity came along, but I was happy to return home at the end of the six weeks.

Although I am still searching for context and learning details about my ancestors who left and their forefathers in Iceland, all of this knowledge has given me an understanding of how I have been shaped as a person. The Icelandic blood may only be a quarter of my heritage, but it is the only story I really know in detail. I know what they risked in order to start over in Canada, and I know the narrative of Canada that allowed them those opportunities. Much of the story is bleak and tragic, but it all led to my life beginning in Canada. 

Treaty #5 made it possible for my ancestors to have land and be successful in Manitoba. And I was born and raised on territory without a treaty in BC, and I currently live in a place where the Williams Treaties made settlement possible, and life as I know it today. With this knowledge, this pride, and this empathy I am better able to engage in positive community development, as a citizen, as an ally, as a daughter, and as a person.

Knowing My History: Part 2

On Identity

I have lived in many different places, including: Kelowna BC, Lethbridge AB, Saskatoon SK, and Peterborough ON, to name a few but not in chronological order. Somehow I had never set foot in the province of Manitoba until I was 22 when I traveled to Winnipeg and Gimli for the first time. 

I went because I wanted to attend the famous Islendingadagurinn or Iceland Days festival that happens during the August long weekend in Gimli. I have Guttormsson cousins with cottages who welcomed me for a whole week, happy to show me around, attending all the activities even though they had been enjoying them for many years and not all parts of the festival were novel for them anymore.

I first learned about the Fjallkona and saw her traditional costume while in Gimli. I also learned that my great-grandmother had been the Fjallkona at the Islendingadagurinn one year. I also saw choirs and dancers from Iceland performing on the centre stage, and ate Icelandic treats in the food pavilion. For the first time I tasted kleinur, pönnukökur, and skyr in its original unsweetened and unflavoured form.

Now that I live just outside of Toronto, I attend events all the time where Icelandic treats and savoury foods are available. But in Gimli, I was treated to a new culinary experience I had not expected. Growing up in the Okanagan my mother and I were members of the Icelandic Canadian Club of BC but we lived too far away to attend many events in Vancouver. Also in Gimli, at the local chain grocery store my cousin bought hardfiskur (dried fish) and hankikjöt (smoked lamb) for me to try. Brennivín was also available at the local Liquor Store, but I did not try it then.

The exposure to the culture of my ancestors infused a renewed sense of pride within me. Throughout my adolescent years, being of Icelandic heritage was still important to me, but I had stopped bragging about the poet. Nobody around me had heard of Guttormur J. Guttormsson and as far as I knew, there were no more books of his except maybe on dusty shelves somewhere in Gimli. As a teenager I wanted to be the right amount different so as not to completely stand out but not fit in with in-crowd. Like most at that age, I was figuring out who I was and did not want the influence of my parents overshadowing my own definition of myself.

Then, in my twenties, I went to study at Trent University and took a summer course, Introduction to Indigenous Studies. To my shame, I learned that I had completed grade school without learning anything substantial about the history of Canada in regards to the treatment of our First Nations. It was in that course that I was encouraged to learn about my own roots, to learn my own history as the descendant of immigrants, and to learn the treaties that made my life possible today. 

These new questions increased my interest and determination to find out everything possible about my Icelandic family. I wanted this history to understand my current identity as a Canadian.

I had been to Gimli, my next stop was Iceland.

Knowing My History: Part 1

On Being Proud

I grew up with a strong sense of pride for being an Icelandic-Canadian. I could point out Iceland on a map when my classmates could not, even though the only thing I really knew about Iceland was that it was not entirely covered by ice, as the name suggests. I am not sure how I learned that, for these were times before Google and Wikipedia, but somehow the trivia fact stuck with me.

Even though I was proud, I did not grow up in an overly Icelandic home. There were, however, small hints of our ancestry that permeated our lives. My grandfather, my mother's father, lived with us for several years when I was young and as far back as I can remember he kept an Icelandic sheepskin, draped over our couch and he still has it today. He also had an ornamental sheep horn displayed on our mantle. And every Christmas we made the Icelandic-Canadian traditional Vinarterta cake using Uncle Thor's recipe (Uncle Thor was a real person too, he was the brother of my grandfather). Many Icelandic names carried on in my family, although they were mostly anglacized, like: Pálina (Pauline), Pétur (Peter), Sálin (Salin and Celine), and classic Thor.

Before I turned ten, I knew that my name, Guttormsson, both impossible to pronounce and spell, linked me to a well-known poet with the same name. I used to tell all my friends this, in search of something to mark me as different and special. It did not matter to me that I had never seen his books, I assumed only adults would know of him. I had been learning French in school from the age of 8, but I had no real understanding that there was an Icelandic language or that I would not be able to read this poet's poems.

At some level I understood that our family went to Winnipeg from Iceland, but I knew nothing of our family's history until I entered high school and started asking questions. I think I was eleven or twelve before I even learned what a viking was, or at least understood who the vikings were. For most of my life I was proud just to be a part of the Icelandic-Canadian community in Canada. Even though we were few, and widely scattered, it was comforting to know there were other families who made Vinarterta, who loved to eat fish, and were tall like me and my family, because I assumed all people from Iceland were tall. Although I have equal amounts of Icelandic, English, Scottish, and German mixed in my genetics, Iceland was the only root I grew up with. 

My Favourites in Reykjavik: Coffee and Beer

A friend shared this article with me yesterday:

New York times article: "36 Hours in Reykjavik" by Ingrid K. Williams

and it got me to thinking how hard it must be to write a generic "ideal" itinerary, especially for a short stop-over because it really depends on when you arrive, how much energy you have, your budget, and what you like to do. Then, last night, I was listening to the Dinner Party Show podcast and Christopher Rice and Eric Shaw Quinn were sharing some of their favourite things, and it got me thinking that I have not shared any of my favourite places yet.

So, because I always travel on a budget, my recommendations are based on my own personal experiences and are budget conscious. If you want reviews of five star dining, I am not the one to give it to you.

Here are some of my favourites...

Coffee and Beer

"C" is for Cookie  is my absolute favourite place for coffee and... you guessed it, cookies. They also prepare delicious soups and lunch food. The staff are friendly and are patient when you practice your Icelandic phrases. The vibe of the place is comfortable, and in good weather it is a lovely spot to sit outside, slightly removed from the busy main streets. Located at Týsgata 8 it is about half way between the central plaza and Hallgrímskirkja, just off one of the main roads.

Café Loki is also a neat spot, directly across from Hallgrímskirkja. The ground floor is a small café with wifi and the upstairs is a small restaurant with many traditional food options, as well as coffee and other beverages. The captivating mural featured in the upper floor is also noteworthy and worth the visit.

Hressó ... full name: Hressingarskálinn, but it is far easier to just say Hressó. This place is a café-restaurant-bar. It reminds me of The Only in Peterborough Ontario, or either The Red Room or the Java Hut in Toronto Ontario ... the food is good, but the service is neither fast nor overly friendly. When I visited Iceland in 2014 it was a great place to watch the World Cup for football. They also have excellent live music. There is no faster way to win over the heart of a Canadian Girl than by playing Bryan Adams - Summer of ´69 when she walks in!

Den Danske Kro was also a hopping spot during the World Cup, with live music every night, often playing American music. With a fair selection of beer and a laid-back atmosphere, it was a refreshing feel like many small town bars that I love, without being overly "Canadian" or "American". I like a good beer, a nice patio, and being able to have a conversation at the bar. This place provided all that. And the name "Danish Krown" hit a soft spot for me.

History

History.

It is both fascinating and addicting when you are learning about the stories you are both in and are from. But once you dig beyond living memory and stories that are passed down verbally, the stories fade into dates, data, and lists. So and so was born here on this approximate date. They boarded a boat form here to go there and took with them these things... and so on. 

We lose the personal connections.

The imagination wants more of our ancestors. The imagination wants to know their personalities, their hopes, desires, and fears. Did two people create babies with mutual consent? Was love and romance involved? Or was it simply a chore or a crime? We cannot know these things with only dates, places, and names. We can only guess and make assumption. For the lucky few there may be books or accounts of their lives, left in journals, memoirs, or jotted down by others. But the full scope of their personal lives are mysteries that we´ll never be able to solve.

But none of that stops us from dreaming.