[LINK] "History repeats itself for 'Vestur Islendingurs'"

[rfmcdonald]

Patrick White writes about what's supposed to be another wave of Icelanders arriving in Canada.

[W]when the Olympic torch went bobbing by the construction project where he was pounding nails yesterday, Steinthor Jonasson couldn't help but walk over for a closer look, joining hundreds of other fair-haired and blue-eyed Scandinavians who comprise the biggest Icelandic settlement outside Iceland.

It's all part of a sometimes harsh adjustment to his new life as a Vestur Islendingur, or west Icelander - one of some 30,000 Manitobans with roots in the little island in the Atlantic.

But one thing makes Mr. Jonasson, 45, unique among most residents here: He arrived just six months ago, placing him in a small but prominent group of Icelandic newcomers trickling into this region in what amounts to a bit of demographic history repeating.

"Gimli is quite well known for taking in people from Iceland many years ago," Mr. Jonasson said.

"Now I suppose it is happening again."

Gimli has been one of Canada's great demographic curiosities for over a century. It was around 1900 that an economic collapse in Iceland prompted many residents to cross the Atlantic in search of greener - or at least icier - pastures.

They found them here, 75 kilometres north of the provincial capital, on the fertile shores of Lake Winnipeg.

Today roughly 6,000 people live here in all and the Icelandic influence is evident in the Viking statue on the lakeshore, the Icelandic flags in yards and the Scandinavian accents.

When Iceland's economy once again collapsed earlier in October, 2008, the phones of local officials began ringing steadily with calls from Iceland.

"We were all getting numerous calls," said Ben Rempel, assistant deputy minister of Manitoba Labour and Immigration.

"It was natural considering Manitoba's cultural and historical links with the country."

Later in the article, the program notes that not many Icelanders have actually come over--Mr. Jonasson is only one of a few. But soon, they hope, soon.