Book review: The Viking Immigrants by L.K. Bertram

L.K. Bertram’s new book on Icelandic immigrants to Canada and the United States is a fascinating look at a culture that persists in spite of, and in some ways because of, assimilation.

The Viking Immigrants by L.K. Bertram

In each chapter, Bertram looks at the evolving Icelandic identity through a different lens. Clothing, food, drink, folklore and language are each considered. She shows how early immigrants sought to succeed, and how their descendants built upon those successes in the face of changing pressures from the dominant culture.

Clothes make the immigrant

Her exploration of clothing is of particular interest. Traditional Icelandic outfits, such as the peysuföt still worn today by women on formal occasions both in Iceland as well as in North America, is sometimes seen as static and unchanging: a link to the past. She documents how this distinctive dress was created as part of Iceland’s struggle in the 19th century to define its culture against that of the Danes who ruled their country. Further, she shows how Icelandic immigrants abandoned aspects of that ensemble in North America, particularly the skotthúfa (a tasselled skull cap).

“Although many migrant women had eagerly embraced these fashions at home in Iceland,” she writes, “it became clear when they arrived in North America that this clothing, including the ‘peculiar’ skotthúfa, could represent something different, a marker of excessive ethnic and racial difference in the eyes of white, Anglophone North Americans.”

But her treatment of clothing is much deeper than what is marked as “traditional” by Icelanders and their descendants. She shows how adopting new styles was crucial for Icelandic immigrants. Those who settled on the Manitoba prairie, including on Lake Winnipeg, soon began wearing clothing more effective against the bitter cold. That included moccasins and garments made by Cree, Ojibwe and Métis artisans. Those who settled in large urban settlements such as Winnipeg abandoned clothing that marked them as foreign. They began wearing styles in conformity with the dominant Anglo society as a way to both gain employment and avoid discrimination.

Immigrants and colonialism

The book also examines the changing relationship between First Nations and Icelandic settlers. Bertram looks at the well-known (among Icelandic-Canadians) relationship between John Ramsay and the Icelanders at what is now Riverton. Ramsay, a prominent member of the Salteaux and Cree community living there, had petitioned the Canadian government for land rights, only to find the government had granted them to the Icelanders. Despite conflict between the two groups, Ramsay helped the Icelanders survive. Both his community and the Icelanders’ suffered a devastating outbreak of smallpox, likely picked up by the Icelandic immigrants as they passed through Quebec.

“Although individual Icelanders might have had positive personal relationships with their Cree, Ojibwe and Métis neighbours at certain times,” Bertram writes, “the Icelanders overall were very aware of and, in many respects, dependent on the appropriation of Indigenous land by the Canadian and American governments and the violent state repression of organized Indigenous resistance in the late nineteenth century.”

A decent cup of coffee

In another chapter, she looks at two important Icelandic beverages: coffee and alcohol. Early arrivals to Canada were frustrated at the lack of good quality coffee in a nation where tea was dominant. Thus, the customs that grew up around procuring and preparing coffee as good as they were accustomed to in Iceland became a part of the Icelandic identity in North America. (Especially interesting is the continuing practice of brewing coffee through a “sock,” which was the only way I knew how to do it until finally getting a coffee maker as an adult.)

Alcohol was more problematic, given its prevalence among male social culture in the decades following the Icelandic immigrants’ initial arrival. Its negative effects on how Icelanders were perceived led to many joining the burgeoning temperance movements in the early 20th century.

Bertram also shows how Icelanders and their descendants managed public perception of themselves and their culture. Xenophobia during the First and Second World Wars added to pressures to assimilate and not be seen as dangerous or too foreign. She shows how this led to a celebration, and mythologization, of a “Viking” identity.

Vínarterta, an ‘Icelandic’ icon

Appropriately, Bertram gives one defining aspect of Icelandic culture in North America its own chapter: vínarterta.

This layered prune torte that has become synonymous with “Icelandic” culture in North America had an unlikely path to stardom. Bertram traces the dessert’s origins in the 1700s as the “Vienna torte,” which then found popularity in Denmark, and thence to Iceland. There, it was popular during the early waves of emigration to North America. In Canada and the United States, vínarterta lived on as an ethnic Icelandic food. But in Iceland, it fell out of fashion and all but disappeared.

Interestingly, while the original versions called for experimentation in fillings and thickness of pastry layers, the recipe ossified in North America. That is, many Icelandic families’ versions became set as the “traditional” recipe. It was a matter of intense debate how many layers one should have, and whether anything but prune filling constituted a “real” vínarterta. (Bertram also includes an appendix with various versions of published recipes, including the early Viennese one.) It might be that I’ve eaten a lot of vínarterta in my life — and enjoy making it! — but this chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

Overall, Bertram’s The Viking Immigrants is a welcome addition to the growing body of historiography of the Icelandic diaspora. It goes beyond community histories and explores multiple themes in the context of emigration, colonialism, settlement, and assimilation, over multiple generations. It’s well worth picking up for anyone of Icelandic descent — as well as for the serious student of immigrant cultures in North America.

Book review

The Viking Immigrants: Icelandic North Americans

by L.K. Bertram

University of Toronto Press, 245 pages

Live, from Winnipeg… it’s Manitoba Book Jam

Thanks to COVID-19, there are new protocols for just about everything, and that includes book readings and other author events. In the before-times, I had a great time attending the launch for Parallel Prairies: Stories of Manitoba Speculative Fiction. Now, however, if we want to do a public event, doing it by video is the safer way to go. Fortunately, that’s exactly what Anita Daher has organized through Manitoba Book Jam. The event will be held this week, on Thursday, Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. CT.

Parallel Prairies
Parallel Prairies

I’m one of six authors for the evening. I’ll be reading from my short story in the anthology, “The Comments Gaze Also Into You.” (It’s an urban fantasy story about holding online trolls accountable. Can’t imagine how that might be relevant these days.) The other authors taking part are Jonathan Ball, S.M. Beiko, Adam Petrash, Darren Ridgley, and Craig Russell. Live music will be provided at the intermission by Alana Levandoski. The anthology was edited by Darren Ridgley and Adam Petrash, and published by Great Plains Books / Enfield and Wizenty. Each author will have about five minutes during the hour-long event.

If you want to watch and listen via Zoom, you can register for the event here. Registration is free, but please consider picking up a copy of the book, or one of the other books by the participating authors! (I should add that Zoom attendees to the event are eligible for a $25 McNally Robinson Booksellers gift certificate draw.) There is more information on the event’s Facebook page, where people can also watch the video of the event.

So: if you’re looking for some book-related diversion this week, tune in on Thursday and listen to a half-dozen prairie authors read from their weird, wonderful work. Hope to see you there!

Enjoy these ’80s TV mashups

I don’t know why glomming two different things onto each other appeals to me so much, but it’s probably why I like puns so much. Or that I wonder what would happen in a crossover between Teen Wolf and The Lost Boys. Or write novels that jam, say, 1980s heavy metal and werewolves together, or others that mix Monty Python absurdity with Icelandic folklore. Occasionally, I start thinking up ’80s TV mashups. Here are the shows I came up with…

Sitcoms

Laugh-a-minute hijinks with your favourite high-concept, never-evolving characters in static three-set environments:

  • The Facts of Webster
  • Chachi in Charge*
  • Silver Moonlighting
  • My Two Ties
  • Bosom Morks
  • Joanie Loves Shirley
  • The Strokes of Life
  • Who’s Company?
  • Family Days

* admittedly this might be indistinguishable from either original series

Dramas

Emmy-award-winning, definitely-not-soap-operas because, uh, they used film, not videotape, and also, were broadcast in the evening.

  • Elsewhere Street Blues
  • airwolfsomething
  • St. Dynasty
  • Hill Street Cheers

Action/suspense shows

Diff’rent A-Team is a TV mashup I’d watch.

These would definitely make your mid-week evening “must-see TV” list:

  • Starsky and Mindy
  • Diff’rent A-Team
  • Too Close For Spenser
  • Remington & Remington
  • Sledge Hunter!
  • T.J. Hooker For Hire
  • Magnum Steele, P.I.
  • The Knights of Hazzard*

*It occurs to me this probably would have been a lot more sinister than a show with a flashy car :/

Ensemble casts

There’s always a standout subplot or gimmick for a minor character within the rigid parameters of every episode:

  • Love Island
  • Star Trek: The Day After
  • The Blue Thunder Years
  • The Happy Boat

Game shows

Try your skill, luck, or interpersonal charm at some of these doozies:

  • Wheel of Jeopardy
  • The Family is Right
  • Let’s Make a Feud
  • The $64,000 Definition*

*(I know, wrong decade)

Sci-fi, horror, fantasy, and other genres

Big ideas! Low budget! Probably a cool vehicle! To say nothing of the costumes…

  • Airwerewolf
  • Tales of the Golden A.L.F.
  • Automanimal
  • M.A.S.H. Headroom
  • Bring ‘Em Back Matthew Starr

Soap operas

Don’t worry, the interpersonal strife between the characters will never be resolved.

  • The Dallas Boat
  • WKRP in Santa Barbara
  • The Young and the Ripley’s Believe It or Not

CanCon

For non-Canucks, CanCon is “Canadian content” meaning entertainment that has been written, performed, recorded, produced, or replicated (or some complicated percentage of any or all of these things) by a Canadian, as judged by the CRTC, which has mandated a certain proportion of CanCon be broadcast by Canadian television and radio stations. This is why shows like The Beachcombers lasted forever, and why generations of teens must endure endless replays of The Guess Who on rock radio.

Here are some shows that might have livened up the ol’ CBC or CTV lineups:

  • The Danger Bay of Things
  • Beachcombers: The Next Generation
  • The Sesame Giant
  • 21 Degrassi Street
  • SCTV in Cincinnati
  • Mr. Dressup’s Neighbourhood

No idea, but it sounds fun

  • Lifestyles of the Rich and Newhart

It’s your turn

All right, I’ve had my fun. Now let’s hear your ideas for ’80s TV mashups. You can see what author J.C. Lillis came up with when we were brainstorming on Twitter:

No idea is too out-there, and I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface. Drop a title in the comments below, or tweet with the #80sTVmashups hashtag!

Guest post on writing conflict at The Fictorians

I was invited by Mary Pletsch (with whom I have the honour of sharing a table of contents with in Kneeling in the Silver Light and Wrestling With Gods) to write a guest post at The Fictorians, on the subject of writing conflict in fiction.

Here’s a little bit of what I had to say:

Don’t say what you mean: writing conflict through dialogue

There are a lot of ways to express conflict through dialogue in a scene, but it can be very effective – and a lot of fun – if it isn’t done openly.

People (and characters) hate conflict. They usually do everything they can to avoid it, unless they’re devoid of empathy. But readers… they love conflict. It makes for great dialogue, exciting scenes, and a plot that keeps moving.

Updating my bookshelf: 2014 in writing

IMG_6434I will confess, at the end of 2013 I thought this shelf (seen above in December of that year) would be filling up a bit more by the end of 2014.  But that would be ignoring the fact I was beyond thrilled to be included in the titles you’ll see on it at the bottom of this post, Long Hidden and Kneeling in the Silver Light. As one of my favourite teachers, Mr. Gillis, used to say: quality, not quantity.

Back to the Front: researching “The Wolves of Vimy”

Kneeling in the Silver Light visits the war memorial on Memorial Boulevard in Winnipeg.
Kneeling in the Silver Light visits the war monument on Memorial Boulevard in Winnipeg.

Shifting genres to tell an earlier part of a character’s story wasn’t something I initially planned on when writing “The Wolves of Vimy” (out now in Kneeling in the Silver Light). But when it came down to it, I thought, what the hell — there’s a story there and I might just learn something.

I’ve blogged earlier this year about how writing “A Deeper Echo” for Long Hidden changed my approach to writing speculative fiction (and, indeed, the way I look at history). For Kneeling in the Silver Light, a dark fantasy/horror anthology of stories about the First World War, I wanted to tell a story in a genre I’d never written in before: military fiction.