It’s often said you never forget a face, and that sure rang true earlier this month when an Arborg resident got to meet Iceland’s president, Halla Tomasdottir, who was visiting Arborg, and thought she looked really familiar.
It turns out Corrine Einarsson, who grew up east of Arborg in the community of Geysir, worked with Tomasdottir 40 years ago in the Búlanstindur fish factory in the town of Djúpivogur on the southeast coast of Iceland.
Their unexpected reunion occurred at the Arborg & District Multicultural Heritage Village, which had asked Einarsson – an in-demand Interlake photographer – to take photos of the president’s visit to the museum earlier this month.
“Halla and I started talking so much about Búlanstindur that it seemed there was no one else in the room,” said Einarsson after she discovered why Iceland’s second female president, who was elected in August 2024, looked so familiar.
When Tomasdottir arrived at the Heritage Village and got out of her car, Einarsson said it instantly hit her that she knew her face but then thought that a lot of Icelanders have similar features and that she couldn’t possibly know the president.
As Einarsson followed the president’s tour through the various historical buildings showcased at the museum, she got a chance to have a brief chat with Tomasdottir’s husband, Bjorn Skulason, at the community hall, she said. He told her his mom was from Djúpivogur, the very place where Einarsson had lived and worked. When Einarsson told him she lived there for four years in the 1980s, Skulason said what a small world it is as Halla lived there, too, in 1985.
“I knew it! Halla worked in the fish factory at the same time I did. She came with one of her girlfriends to work in the plant,” said Einarsson. “There were a lot of people who came to work in Iceland’s fish factories in the summer or throughout the year. They came and went.”
Einarsson got to live and work in Iceland from 1982 to 1986. An Arborg family with ties to Djúpivogur facilitated a visit for Einarsson’s sister, a friend and a few other young people in 1981. When they returned to Arborg, they said working in Iceland had been such a great experience that they had to go again and bring more people with them.
“When we all went in 1982, there were 20 Canadians. We all got to work for a year. If we worked for a year, our tickets were paid,” said Einarsson. “I ended up staying four years because it was way too much fun. We would speak half English and half Icelandic, and you made friends there. It was cool.”
She and Tomasdottir compared notes about the Búlanstindur fish factory, and Einarsson asked her in Icelandic who her verkstjóri (supervisor) was. Sure enough, they had the same boss.
“We started talking about the same people, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is too crazy,’” said Einarsson. “’I swear I have pictures of you from then.’”
They also told each other that they ate fresh shrimp right off the line.
“Halla said, ‘We ate shrimp right off the conveyor belt’ and I said, ‘We did too! Maybe you were working at the end of the line with me,’” said Einarsson.
Einarsson shared a few old photos of the fish plant with the Express, and said she’s going to dig up some old albums she’s got stashed somewhere to see if there’s anything she can share with the friends she made in Iceland 40 years ago and with whom she still keeps in touch.
Einarsson said she’s planning a future visit to Iceland with her husband, who was born there.
