Gimli’s New Iceland Heritage Museum has set the stage this month for a celebration of two historical milestones and a number of other events to engage the local community.
The museum is celebrating its 50th birthday this year and the 150th anniversary of the 1875 landing of the first Icelanders to the Gimli area.
The museum gets things rolling with Icelandic language lessons starting on Oct. 8. You can master the basics without suffering the pain of conjugating verbs, worrying about male and female nouns and navigating the very tricky world of words that just don’t sound the way they look. Gunnvor Asmundsson will be your Icelandic teacher for eight weeks, from Oct. 8 to Nov. 26.
“The folks who take the class won’t come out fluent, but they’ll definitely have more than what they came in with,” said NIHM executive director Julianna Roberts. “Conversational Icelandic will be taught. If you ever go to Iceland, you’ll be able to ask for directions. The lessons don’t get too heavy into grammar and but it will teach some common words. Gunnvor taught Icelandic at the Scandinavian Centre for over 20 years and she’s got lots of experience teaching Icelandic.”
Next up is the museum’s fundraising dinner and dance on Oct. 18 that will highlight 50 years of having preserved and advanced Icelandic culture and heritage in the area, as well as provided space for local artists and travelling exhibitions.
“NIHM has been in this building [in the Waterfront Centre] for 25 years now, but before that it was housed in the B.C. Packers fish plant at the base of the pier. When that building became uninhabitable, the museum was moved to the basement of the Gimli Public School then here,” said Roberts.
The dinner and dance will include a silent auction, entertainers and a tribute to the museum’s first board of directors.
People interested in visiting special landmarks in New Iceland can reserve a spot on a bus tour set for Oct. 19 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Cost is $65 and lunch is included. Led by Joel Fridfinnson, the tour will include a visit to a monument to Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who organized a Canadian Arctic expedition from 1913 to 1916 to survey for the Canadian government, homesteads and other monuments to notable Icelanders.
To register for the tour, email giftshop@nihm.ca or visit online nihm.ca.
It will be 50 years since the annual Walk to the Rock was founded. The walk to the big white rock on Willow Island celebrates the 1875 landing of the first Icelanders to the New Iceland colony.
“Connie Magnusson started the walk in 1975 to the monument on Willow Island. She had asked her mother, Sigga, to go with her and Disa Einarson. Dilla Narfason has also been a champion of the walk all these years,” said Roberts.
The walk starts at noon on Oct. 21 outside the Waterfront Centre and heads south along Lake Winnipeg, through South Beach and on to Willow Island. After the walk people can enjoy refreshments in Johnson Hall and listen to a guest lecturer from the University of British Columbia as part of the Beck Lecture Series. The topic of the lecture is Gottormur Guttormsson, a New Iceland author who wrote the poem Sandy Bar.
The museum will be holding its 50th birthday party on Saturday, Oct. 25 with free admission, cake and door prizes, plus a tribute to New Iceland’s 100th anniversary in 1975 with the screening of a CBC documentary titled The Saga of New Iceland. The documentary originally aired in 1976 and has been digitally remastered from the original film reels in the Archives of Manitoba. It highlights the history of the Icelandic community in the 1970s.
The museum launched an exhibit earlier this year featuring the pivotal events that occurred in 1975 and the centennial celebration in Gimli.
“The centennial was a huge year for New Iceland. Thousands of Icelanders came here. Viking Travel was born that year to accommodate the demand for travel between Iceland and New Iceland,” said Roberts. “Len and Karen Vopnfjord sang in a 1975 CBC documentary on the Icelandic community, and they came back to Gimli for the Icelandic Festival this year and watched themselves perform in the documentary. It was so awesome.”
The documentary also features David Arnason, Skapti Arnason, Ted Arnason, Helgi Austman, Neil Bardal Sr., Kristine Benson Kristofferson, Haraldur Bessason, Thora Cooke, Mike Goodman, Helgi Jones, Sigrid Johnson, Wilhelm Kristjanson, Joan Parr, Rev. Philip Petursson, Larus Sigurdson, Solli Sigurdson, Stefania Sigurdson, Gunnar Simundson, Donna Skardal, Stefan J. Stefanson, Olla Stefanson, Sigurbjörg Stefansson, Lorna Tergesen, Arora Thordarson, Allan Thorleifson, Dr. P.H.T. Thorlakson, W.D. Valgardson and Marion Yeo.
The documentary will be shown at 1 p.m. It will be introduced by Dr. Ryan Eyford from the University of Winnipeg
Mark Dec. 5 and 6 on your calendar because NIHM will be hosting a Christmas market that will help people find unique handmade items and other products.
