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.