The Icelandic Canadian Club of British Columbia - Scandinavian Community Centre
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The Icelandic Canadian Club of British Columbia
NEWSLETTER
January 2021 Gott og farsælt komandi ár LIII:i
Glenn Sigurdson has been appointed to the Order of Canada,
it was announced in late November 2020. He is among 114 new appointments
named to one of the country’s highest honours. Sigurdson, a mediator,
negotiator, lawyer, facilitator – among numerous other vocations – was
appointed to the order for “his dexterous relationship-building skills and for his
contributions to alternative dispute resolution across Canada and beyond,”
according to the news release. Sigurdson’s career has often involved mediation
with regards to multi-party challenges involving environmental, resource, and
land use issues. Recipients will be invited to accept their insignias at a ceremony
hosted by Gov. Gen. Julie Payette at a later date, according to the release.
Glenn Sigurdson is Honourary Consul General of Iceland for British Columbia.
On the internet, Glenn writes:
I have long been a man in search of a title!- I have been described as everything
from a mediator, negotiator, facilitator, coach, mentor lawyer, teacher, historian,
writer“ – but probably the best and simplest description that combines a bit of
everything into the mix is - the man in the middle” helping others resolve deeply
embedded differences, reach tough decisions, and build resilient relationships.
My business is moving people from fighting to talking, most notably in
complicated resource, environmental, and land use challenges, often involving
Indigenous communities’ rights and interests. As I share in my memoir (Vikings
on a Prairie Ocean), it was the values, influences, and experiences I learned as a boy growing up in Riverton, in a
prominent Lake Winnipeg Icelandic Canadian fishing family with a century of history on Lake Winnipeg, that
shaped my life and career.
The Order of Canada is one of Canada’s highest civilian awards. It is humbling to be included with the more than
7,000 people who have received it since its creation in 1967. The website of the Governor-General says its
inspiration was to recognize outstanding achievement, dedication to the community, and service to the nation,
with the motto Desiderantes meliorem patriam, “They desire a better country.” I will do my best to live up to
that expectation. In doing so, I have never, nor will, lose sight of the fact that I am, at heart, still a boy from
Riverton, a community where what it takes to keep building a better Canada has long been recognized.
If you would like to read more of what Glenn has written on the internet, check out the following address:
https://prairieocean.ca/building-a-better-country-riverton-brings-home-a-second-order-of-canada/
The Icelandic Language classes will not begin until Covid-19 is conquered.
There is an online website: https://icelandiconline.com/ which is a free course for beginners. The course
includes a series of different types of interactive, visual and audio exercises that will help you learn Icelandic for
everyday life in a fun and easy way. If you proceed to the next level, there is a charge.
This course has been recommended.
1
Memories of Iceland—Kaela Brandson
From the moment we got off the plane, I felt at
home. The crisp, chilly air hit me almost in a
comforting and familiar way, despite it being the first
time in Iceland. We (Amma, Afi, Dad and I) were lucky
enough to have booked a hotel in the heart of
Reykjavik where everything in town was in walking
distance, especially the soccer fields.
We met up with our relatives and they were
kind enough to drive us in the Golden Circle - a
sightseeing wonder of waterfalls, geysers, and rock
formations of all shapes and sizes. They were also kind
enough to arrange for me to practice with an Icelandic
girls’ soccer team that was the same age as me. You Dad, Kaela, Amma & Afi (Valerie & Wayne Brandson)
would think the language barrier would make things Bonus, and absolutely falling in love with this godly
difficult. Surprisingly not, a few of the girls were pastry called Klenat. Amma, Afi, Dad and I would
proficient in English, and soccer itself is a universal scramble to get the last ones like wolves closing in on
game; not much speaking was needed besides the prey. The ones I have tried in Canada will never compare
occasional “here, here!” or Pass!” which they to the ones I had in Iceland. I miss them almost as much
understood. I found out that one of the girls on the as fighting over the phone charger cord with Dad and
team could speak 12 different languages! I made some Amma and Afi (ha-ha, sarcasm). In case you are unaware
friends on the team that I am still in contact with we have different shaped electrical sockets than Iceland.
today. Much to our delight we only realized that on arrival to
Later in our trip we went to visit an old house in our hotel when we had to charge all our devices and
which my great Afi used to live in. It was turned into a there was only one working cord the hotel provided.
museum, but his name was painted on the wall What could have turned into a Brandson bloodbath, was
upstairs. To this day it is one of the coolest things I solved by taking turns in a sophisticated non-Viking like
have ever seen. But what really took me by surprise on way.
the trip, was the fact that when we went to sleep it I wish I could put into words how much I miss
was still bright out. It could be 3am but still as bright Iceland, and my friends there. I hope that one day I’ll
as day. It was amazing but also annoying when trying have the pleasure to visit again. For those that are
to fall asleep. thinking of visiting I would 100% recommend it-and hope
I remember going to the local grocery store that you had as much fun as I did.
Höfn Icelandic Harbour, 2020 Harrison Drive, Vancouver, BC
Assisted Living & Affordable Housing; an open, bright, caring, friendly environment
We have been providing care for Seniors since 1947.
Höfn has remained Covid-19 free during this epidemic with thanks to our excellent director, Albert Teng, and staff.
Find us at: info@icelandicharbour.org OR 604-321-3812
2 January 2021
An appeal to resuscitate the Poets' Corner
To rhyme or not to rhyme that is a question.
Which is worse
poetry
or
free verse;
Haiku's structure
or
Ferlinghetti's
loose as a goose
Nature?
Be brisk, take a risk,
be brash, submit our trash.
After this what could be worse?
Footnote: Emil Bjarnason used to joke that the reason Iceland had such a low murder rate (Ysra and
Arnaldur aside) was because when Icelanders got mad at each other, one or both would go home and
write a denunciation poem about the other. If really, really, irate he/she would publish the poem.
Icelandair plans to resume flights to and from Vancouver in May 2021.
Scandinavian Cultural Centre Events - https://scancentre.org/events-calendar/
Nordic Baking: Cardamom Bread, January 11, Monday Nordic Baking Bake Sale, January 17, 2021, Sunday
Class is held on Zoom, 7 pm For info: https://scancentre.org/events-calendar/
Price per student $20. The Sale is run by the Scandinavian Community
2 hour class and recipe Centre in Burnaby, BC. All orders need to be placed
Contact: To register and more information, email
and paid for by 6pm Thursday Jan 14. There is
Sandra at scanbake@gmail.com
limited supply available. To order:
1. Fill out the form
Nordic Baking: Lingonberry Flax Loaf, January 18
Info identical to the above class. 2. You will receive a confirmation email within 24
hours with your invoice.
Nordic Baking: Chocolate Almond Dreams, Jan 25 3. Pay your invoice within 48 hours. Pick up will be on
Info identical to the above class. Sunday January 17, 2021 between 1-2pm. Once you
have paid, you will be given a 15 min pickup time.
The Scandinavian Community Centre is the Perfect Place for your Wedding, Conference, Workshop or Private
Party https://scancentre.org/facilities-rental/
Featuring a large Banquet Hall, a Fireside Lounge and an industrial kitchen, the Scandinavian Centre has a space
that is certain to suit your needs. All rental spaces can be set up to your specifications and have access to
wireless internet. These facilities are available for daytime and evening use. Full bar available upon request.
We are perfect for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, showers, celebrations of life, workshops and company
and family picnics. In the summer the Fireside Lounge opens to a fully covered deck! The kitchen is available for
rent only in conjunction with the hall and/or the lounge.
We have lots of parking.
January 2021
3
How Iceland Managed the 2020 Virus: The Beginnings
Excerpted from the New Yorker magazine, June 8, 2020, author Elizabeth Kolbert, staff writer
On the morning of Friday, February 28th, Ævar Pálmi next to whom on buses and in lecture halls. One man who
Pálmason, a detective with the Reykjavík police fell ill had recently attended a concert. The only person he
department, was summoned by his boss. Iceland did not remembered having had contact with while there was his
yet have a confirmed case of COVID-19, but the country’s wife. But the tracing team did some sleuthing and found
Department of Civil Protection and Emergency that after the concert there had been a reception. “In this
Management wanted to be prepared. Suppose somebody gathering, people were hugging, and eating from the same
tested positive? A team would be needed to track down trays,” Pálmason told me. “So the decision was made—all
everyone with whom that person had been in contact. of them go into quarantine.” If you were returning to
Pálmason’s supervisor told him he was going to lead that Iceland from overseas, you also got a call: put yourself in
team. quarantine. At the same time, the country was
“We were just talking: ‘If and when the first case aggressively testing for the virus—on a per-capita basis, at
happens—it could be this week, we just don’t know,’ ” the highest rate in the world.
Pálmason recalled. “And then, two hours later, we got the Iceland never imposed a lockdown. Only a few types
call.” A man who’d recently been skiing in the Dolomites of businesses—night clubs and hair salons, for example—
had become the country’s first known coronavirus were ever ordered closed. Hardly anyone in Reykjavík
patient. wears a mask. And yet, by mid-May, when I went to talk to
Two other cops, two nurses, and a criminologist Pálmason, the tracing team had almost no one left to
had been assigned to Pálmason’s team. “With our track. During the previous week, in all of Iceland, only two
detective techniques to find people, we began to gather new coronavirus cases had been confirmed. The country
some information from the case,” Pálmason told me. The hadn’t just managed to flatten the curve; it had, it
man, the team learned, had been back in Iceland for seemed, virtually eliminated it.
several days before he’d been diagnosed. During that I had initially planned to go to Iceland in March, for
time, he’d done all the things people normally do—gone a story unconnected to the coronavirus. Suddenly, the trip
to work, met with colleagues, run errands. was called off. The European Union was barring Americans
Anyone who’d spent more than fifteen minutes from entering, and the United States was barring
near the man in the days before he’d experienced his first Europeans. Flights were being cancelled. There didn’t
symptoms was considered potentially infected. (“Near” seem any way to resurrect the trip, until it occurred to me:
was defined as within a radius of two metres, or just over what if I wrote about Iceland’s response to COVID-19? I
six feet.) The team came up with a list of fifty-six names. looked online and learned that all those entering the
By midnight, all fifty-six contacts had been located and country were required to submit a form outlining how
ordered to quarantine themselves for fourteen days. The they planned to quarantine for two weeks. I applied to the
first case was followed by three more cases, then by six, Ministry for Foreign Affairs for an exemption as a
and then by an onslaught. By mid-March, confirmed COVID journalist. The answer came back: no.
cases in Iceland were increasing at a rate of sixty, seventy, I did some e-mailing and phoning around. Iceland,
even a hundred a day. As a proportion of the country’s which has three hundred and sixty-five thousand
population, this was far faster than the rate at which residents—about half the population of Denver—is a
cases in the United States were growing. The number of famously tight-knit country. Almost everyone, quite
people the tracing team was tracking down, meanwhile, literally, is related to everyone else, and if two people
was rising even more quickly. An infected person might want to know how exactly their families are intertwined
have been near five other people, or fifty-six, or more. they can consult a genealogy database run by an Icelandic
One young woman was so active before she tested biotech firm called deCODE Genetics. Iceland was able to
positive—going to classes, rehearsing a play, attending test so many people because, at the height of the
choir practice—that her contacts numbered close to two outbreak, deCODE turned its state-of-the-art facilities over
hundred. All were sent into quarantine. to screening for the virus. I got in touch with the head of
The tracing team, too, kept growing, until it had the firm, Kári Stefánsson, a neurologist and a national
fifty-two members. They worked in shifts out of celebrity. He told me that he would work things out. A few
conference rooms in a Reykjavík hotel that had closed for days later, the no became a yes, with qualifications. I’d
lack of tourists. To find people who had been exposed, have to enter a “modified” quarantine for journalists. The
team members scanned airplane manifests and security- list of rules ran four single-spaced pages and included
camera footage. They tried to pinpoint who was sitting (Continued on page 5)
January 2021
4
(Continued from page 4) company, which, like much of the rest of Iceland, went
provisos on how to use—or, really, not use—public rest bankrupt following the financial crisis of 2008. DeCODE is
rooms. It laid out a half-dozen scenarios—“interview of a now owned by an American biotech company, Amgen; its
public figure in a private company setting,” “interview of offices are in a sleek, metal-clad building not far from
any person in a private setting out of doors”—with Reykjavík’s municipal airport. Refrigerated storage rooms
detailed instructions for how each one should be in the basement hold blood samples from a hundred and
handled. An “interview of a public servant in the eighty thousand Icelanders—roughly one of every two
workplace” was allowed, but with numerous conditions. people in the country.
(“The director of the public entity must be informed and Stefánsson told me that he’d decided to get
assent to the interview even if they are not the involved in COVID-19 research a few days after Iceland’s
interviewee ... The journalist should not explore the site, first case was announced. He was driving to his office one
even with a guide, but only visit the space designated for morning when he heard on the radio an estimate of the
the interview.”) virus’s fatality rate. “They predicted that 3.4 per cent of
Icelandair had, by this time, suspended service those who were infected would die,” Stefánsson recalled.
from the United States, except for sporadic flights out of “And I couldn’t understand how they could calculate the
Boston. The day I left, a Saturday, the international death rate, not knowing the distribution of the virus in
terminal at Logan was as solemn and silent as a society. So when I came to work I sat down with my
mausoleum. Not a single ticket desk was open. On the colleagues. And I told them we should offer to screen the
plane, I counted fourteen seats occupied, out of nearly general population in Iceland.”
two hundred. I spoke briefly with a woman seated a few Iceland’s university hospital was already testing
rows in front of me. She was going to visit her fiancé, an people who had symptoms of COVID-19. But by testing
Icelandic soccer player, and was unhappy that they people who had no symptoms, or only very mild ones,
would be spending the first two weeks of her stay in deCODE picked up many cases that otherwise would have
separate apartments. One of the crew members told me been missed. These cases, too, were referred to the
that he and almost all of his colleagues, including the tracing team. By May 17th, Iceland had tested 15.5% of its
pilots, had been given three months’ notice; they were population for the virus. In the U.S., the figure was 3.4%.
working only occasional flights. Despite the generalized Meanwhile, deCODE was also sequencing the virus
gloom, it was thrilling to be going somewhere; for the from every Icelander whose test had come back positive.
previous eight weeks, the farthest I’d travelled was to As the virus is passed from person to person, it picks up
the liquor store. random mutations. By analyzing these, geneticists can
When we landed at Keflavík, Iceland’s map the disease’s spread. At the beginning of the
international airport, I faced my first crisis of conscience. outbreak, travellers returning to Iceland from the Italian
Among the many proscribed activities for me, I knew, Alps seemed to be the primary source of infections. But
was shopping. But it was nearly 10 pm, and Icelandair researchers at deCODE found that, while attention had
had cancelled the flight’s meal service. Was I allowed been focused on Italy, the virus had been quietly slipping
into the duty-free store? I decided that I was. Dinner into the country from several other nations, including
that night was beer and licorice. Britain. Travellers from the West Coast of the U.S. had
The next day, Stefánsson offered to pick me up at brought in one strain, and travellers from the East Coast
my hotel. (Crisis No. 2: “Even those being interviewed another. The East Coast strain had been imported to
should maintain 2 metres distance from the journalist in America from Italy or Austria, then exported back to
quarantine as much as possible.”) As soon as I got into Europe. By sequencing the virus from every person
his Porsche, he asked me where I was from. I said infected, researchers at deCODE could also make
western Massachusetts. “Massachusetts is probably the inferences about how it had spread. “One of the very
most boring place on earth,” he declared. Stefánsson, interesting things is that, in all our data, there are only
who is seventy-one, is tall and broad-shouldered, with two examples where a child infected a parent,” Stefánsson
white hair and a white, Hemingwayesque beard. For told me. “But there are lots of examples where parents
most of the eighties and nineties, he lived in the U.S., infected children.”
teaching first at the University of Chicago and then at Stefánsson is a frequent critic of the Icelandic
Harvard. He returned to Iceland with the notion of using government. He often fires off opinion pieces to
the country’s small, inbred population to study the newspapers, on subjects ranging from the management of
connection between disease and genetic variation. This fisheries to hospital financing. (A few years ago, he
was before the human genome had been fully circulated a petition demanding that the government
sequenced, and Stefánsson was sailing into uncharted spend more on health care, and a third of the country’s
waters. He founded deCODE, and it grew into a large (Continued on page 6)
5 January 2021(Continued from page 5) an outbreak in a nursing home in the town of Bolungarvík,
adult population signed it.) At any given moment, he’s in northwestern Iceland, and one in the Westman Islands,
almost sure to be wrangling with one ministry or an archipelago off the southern coast, which seemed to
another; in March, when the Icelandic Data Protection have started at a handball game. “The numbers in the
Authority said that it couldn’t rule immediately on a beginning were terrible,” Möller said. She attributed the
request from deCODE, Stefánsson issued a lengthy country’s success in bringing the caseload down in part to
denunciation on Facebook. But, when I asked Stefánsson having got an early start.
about the Icelandic government’s response to COVID-19, The “trio,” along with officials from Iceland’s
he had only kind words. “This was done in an extremely university hospital, had begun meeting back in January.
balanced way,” he said at one point. “And I think the “We saw what was going on in China,” she recalled. “We
authorities did pretty much everything right.” At another saw the pictures of people lying dead in emergency
point, he told me, “The remarkable thing in this whole departments, even on the street. So it was obvious that
affair is that in Iceland it has been run entirely by the something terrible was happening. And, of course, we
public-health authorities. They came up with the plan, didn’t know if it would spread to other countries. But we
and they just instituted it. And we were fortunate that didn’t dare take the chance. So we started preparing.” For
our politicians managed to control themselves.” example, it was discovered that the country didn’t have
In Reykjavík, I stayed at one of the few hotels that enough protective gear for its health-care workers, so
were open. Though I’d been in Iceland for only two days, hospital officials immediately set about buying more.
I recognized a group of three being interviewed as the Meanwhile, Möller began assembling a “backup”
team who had guided Iceland’s response to COVID-19: the team. “You know, everybody knows everyone in Iceland,”
country’s director of emergency management, Víðir she said. “And so I rang up the president of the Icelandic
Reynisson; its chief epidemiologist, Þórólfur Guðnason; Medical Association and the head of the nurses’
and its director of health, Alma Möller. association.” Doctors who had recently retired, nurses
Reynisson, Guðnason, and Möller worked together who had gone on to other jobs—all were urged to sign up.
out of an improvised COVID command center in the offices When new cases started to be diagnosed in a great rush,
of the Icelandic Coast Guard. Through March, April, and the backup team, along with doctors whose offices had
much of May, they gave a joint briefing every day at been shut by the pandemic, counselled people over the
2 P.M., at which they discussed, matter-of-factly, what phone. “If you were seventy, if you had high blood
they knew and what they didn’t. Sometimes they invited pressure, you got called every day,” Möller told me. “But,
guests, such as a psychologist who spoke about how to if you were young and healthy, maybe twice a week. And
talk to kids about the pandemic. On occasion, they I’m sure that this led to fewer hospital admittances and
warned about misinformation—for instance, the even to fewer intensive-care admittances.”
potentially fatal consequences of attempting to fight the This, in turn, appears to have cut down on fatalities.
virus by drinking bleach. Three-quarters of Icelanders Iceland’s death rate from COVID-19 is one out of every one
tuned in at some point. Reynisson, Guðnason, and Möller hundred and eighty confirmed cases, or just 0.56%—one
became so well known that they were referred to simply of the lowest in the world. The figure is so low that it
as the “trio,” or the “tripod,” or, as one person put it to raised some doubts. Möller’s department decided to look
me, the “holy trinity.” into how many Icelanders had perished for any reason
As it happened, I had an appointment the next since the outbreak began. It turned out that over-all
morning to speak to Möller. She was back in her own mortality in Iceland had actually gone down since the
office, in a sleek glass tower by the harbor. The first thing coronavirus had arrived. I asked Möller about masks. In
she said when I sat down was “I’m so sorry. I knew from Massachusetts, an executive order issued by the governor
early February that the U.S. would be in great trouble.” requires that masks be worn by anyone entering a store,
Möller is an intensive-care physician by training; in 1990, taking a cab, or using public transit, and violators can be
she became the first woman to serve as a helicopter fined up to three hundred dollars. In Iceland, masks aren’t
doctor with Iceland’s Coast Guard. The job entailed such even part of the public conversation. Möller said that
tasks as being lowered in a harness onto fishing boats in wearing one might be advisable for a person who is sick
the North Atlantic to treat sick crew members. In 2018, and coughing, but that person shouldn’t be walking
she became the country’s first female director of health. around in public anyway. “We think they don’t add much
Möller pulled up a series of graphs and charts on her and they can give a false sense of security,” she said.
laptop. These showed that, per capita, Iceland had had “Also, masks work for some time, and then they get wet,
more COVID-19 cases than any other Scandinavian and they don’t work anymore.” Möller was careful not to
country, and more than even Italy or Britain. There was suggest that Iceland had beaten the virus. We deal with
(continued on page 8)
6 January 2021Iceland Online – December 2020 & January 2021
Compiled by Iceland Review, Iceland Monitor & Reykjavik Grapevine Editorial Staffs
Plastic Shopping Bags Banned in damage is extensive. The accident He tells mbl.is that the pandemic,
Iceland happened at 5 am when cement was which appeared to be on the rise in
Since January 1, stores in Iceland may being pumped from a vessel in mid-December, seems to be under
no longer offer plastic shopping bags Akranes harbor into four 4,000-ton control. “People have been wearing
to customers, mbl.is reports. This cement silos, owned by Akranes face masks, and we appear to be
applies to the thicker, traditional Cement Plant, where it is stored. One following these rules,” he states. “We
shopping bags, as well as to thinner, of the tanks overflowed, resulting in have succeeded in keeping this under
smaller kinds of plastic bags, fine dust being spread over part of control, even though it seemed to be
previously available in the fruits and the town, mbl.is reports. The silos are on the rise for a while.”
vegetable section of grocery stores. still in use although the plant has In neighboring countries, including the
Rolls of plastic bags may, however, still been torn down. According to UK and Ireland, the pandemic has
be sold in stores. The ban is among Gunnar Sigurðsson, director of the been rapidly spreading. Thousands are
numerous measures taken by the Cement Plant, human error caused diagnosed a day, and hospitals are
Icelandic government aimed at the accident. “Fine dust got into the under a great deal of stress.
reducing the use of plastic, increasing air, causing it to spread over a large Thor admits he is somewhat worried
recycling and preventing plastic area,” he states. Akranes firefighters about the coming weeks. The number
pollution of the ocean. were called out to rinse the cement of infections could rise once people
off houses, and others were called return to work and school after the
R ey k j a v í k S t ud i o s Creates out to clean cars that were covered holidays. “But we’ve seen this increase
Opportunities for Iceland in cement. The Cement Plant before, and if it does, we’ll slow it
Film director Baltasar Kormákur states estimates the amount of cement that down again,” he states.
that his film studio Reykjavík Studios in was spread over the town was
Gufunes creates new possibilities for between 200 kg and two tons. Expects Majority of Icelanders to Be
film production in Iceland. He was Vaccinated First Half of 2021
interviewed by Morgunblaðið Vínbúðin Liquor Stores Report Icelandic Prime Minister Katrín
journalist Baldur Arnarson. The Record Sales Jakobsdóttir states she expects the
roughly 8,000-m2 (86,000-sq ft) studio Vínbúðin liquor stores, the sole retail majority of Icelanders to be vaccinated
is one of Europe’s largest, making it vendor of alcohol in Iceland, report for COVID-19 the first half of this
possible to fully produce foreign films record sales in 2020, according year, mbl.is reports. Vaccinations in
in Iceland. This could potentially to Morgunblaðið. There are 51 such Iceland have gone better in Iceland
increase the country’s income from stores operated, 14 of them in the than had been expected, she adds.
film production. “The argument for capital area. Counted in liters, sales
coming to Iceland to film in this studio, of alcoholic beverages increased Trapped (Icelandic: Ófærð)
from the point of view of the people in from 23 million liters in 2019 to is an Icel andic television
charge in Hollywood,” Baltasar states, nearly 27 million liters in 2020, or by mystery drama series, created by
“is that the whole film can be shot in 18 p e r ce n t . S i gr ún Ósk Baltasar Kormákur and produced by
Iceland, if it’s suitable for outdoor Sigurðardóttir, assistant director of RVK Studios. Broadcast in Iceland. It is
filming in this country, instead of Vínbúðin stores, attributes this in its 4th season on Netflix and highly
having to hire another group of staff increase in sales mainly to the COVID acclaimed.
and travel someplace else in the -19 pandemic:
meantime. ”In addition, demand for
streaming services, such as Netflix, has ‘Unbelievably Good’ Outlook Film - January 26, the Toronto
increased during the pandemic. “Compared to other nations around Icelandic club is featuring the Finnish
us, the outlook is unbelievably good,” film, virtually, ‘Raspberry Boat
Town of Akranes Covered in Cement Refugee’ filmed in Finnish with English
states Thor Aspelund, professor of
When residents of Akranes, West epidemiology and biostatistics at the subtitles, at 4pm, Pacific time. If you
Iceland, woke up January 5th, a layer University of Iceland, speaking of the are interested in watching this film,
of cement covered their houses and COVID-19 situation in Iceland. “It’s an please contact the Toronto club site at
cars. “Everyone is irritated and fed up indication that we’re doing well in www.icct.info/movies for additional
with this,” Halldór Gíslason, one of the terms of participation in disease information and for registration and
residents, tells mbl.is. He fears the prevention measures. donation.
January 2021
7(Continued fro page 6—How Iceland Managed the 2020 Virus) people can come and leave the island, and we need to
avalanches, earthquakes, eruptions, and so on.” Among the do it without putting too much pressure on the health-
slides she showed me about the country’s experience with care system. So it’s a delicate balance.”
COVID was one labelled “Success?” That evening, the weather was clear and cool—by
At the height of the outbreak, Iceland’s government New York standards, too cool to eat outside, by
imposed a ban on gatherings of more than twenty people. Reykjavík standards balmy. The outdoor cafés were
It also closed high schools and universities. (Primary schools crowded. Restaurants had been asked to arrange their
and day-care centers remained open, on a limited tables to keep groups two metres apart, but some
schedule.) The restrictions started to ease up in early May. diners, I noticed, had pushed the tables closer together.
By the time I arrived, the schools had reopened, the limit Everyone was talking and laughing, masklessly. The
on gatherings had been raised to fifty, and people were scene was completely ordinary, which is to say now
again getting their hair cut. exotic—just people meeting up with friends for dinner.
On May 12th, the country’s Prime Minister, Katrín For a traveller these days, this might be an even better
Jakobsdóttir, announced a plan to let visitors into the draw, I thought, than glaciers or whale-watching.
country by mid-June. Under the plan, foreigners arriving at
Keflavík would be presented with three options. They could
show a certificate confirming a recent negative COVID-19
test, be screened for the virus, or go into quarantine. Who
would perform the screening, and how this would all work,
was left unspecified.
In an interview, the day after Jakobsdóttir’s
announcement, she said: “We think we are taking a really
cautious step, by saying we are going to start this
experiment, where people can choose between a test or
quarantine,” she said. “If it works well, it might become the
arrangement, at least for the next few months. It won’t
save the tourism sector in Iceland this year. We are very
much aware of that. But we need somehow to insure that
The 8-page newsletter is published at the beginning of each
month, ten months of the year. A newsletter is not printed in
July or August. Material is gratefully received by the 20 th of
each month.
Editor & Publisher:
Margrét Bjarnason Amirault, Tel: 604-688-9082
Distribution: Heather Johnson, Nina Jobin, Norm Eyford Stuðlagil canyon
Membership: Norman Eyford, 778-846-1894
ICCBC Mail: 6540 Thomas Street, Burnaby, BC V5B 4P9 Oakridge Lutheran Church
Printer: Prism Printing, 203-6th St., New Westminster
is engaging in a major redevelopment
Website of the Icelandic Canadian Club of BC: The new worship space is: Redeemer
www.icelandicclubbc.ca Lutheran Church, 1499 Laurier Ave.,
Vancouver.
Facebook: @icelandicclubbc
Icelandic National League Website: www.inlofna.org
Library & Genealogy
Icelandic Radio (6 stations): www.xnet.is
Books written by Icelanders in English or translation
Morgunblaðið: http://mbl.is
are available in the Scandinavian library upstairs.
Ströndin Internet Radio: www.inlofna.org/SIR
Books in Icelandic are located in the Iceland Room.
Honorary Consul General of Iceland for British Columbia, Information regarding the Genealogy Centre can be
Glenn Sigurdson, www.glennsigurdson.com obtained from Gerri McDonald, email:
gerrimcdonald@shaw.ca
8 January 2021You can also read
