I’ve always believed in the dignity of “quiet patriotism”. The more someone waves a flag or shouts slogans, the more suspicious I tend to be that their “patriotism” is half-baked or fraudulant. I do not, for example, think that any Trump supporter can claim to be a patriotic American, no matter how much red-white-and-blue they paint on themselves. They are traitors to their country, plain and simple. Similarly, the spectacle of the fake “truckers” in the ludicrous Karen Karavan that terrorized Ottawa wrapping themselves in Canadian flags (along with their Nazi Swastikas and Confederate Battle Flags) were the exact opposite of patriots. But now and then an incident ― such as 14-year old Kiya Bruno singing “O Canada” in the Cree First Nations language at Blue Jays and Oilers games ― strikes me as a genuine and apt expression of love of one’s country. Sometimes a poem, a painting, a symphony or a song will capture the feeling. It’s hard to listen to Neil Young’s “Helpless” or to look at a Tom Thompson canvas without being touched by it. After all, I do feel that I am part of my country, that I owe it something, and that it’s part of my bones. And I’m well aware that one does not have to be born in Canada, or to abandon or belittle one’s roots elsewhere to feel this way.
So I was delighted to find an example of “quiet patriotism” in a collection of the poems of Stephan G. Stephansson. He did not write in English. He wrote poetry and prose in his native Icelandic, but was for the better part of his life a Canadian. He was born on a farm in the district of Seyluyhreppur, Skagafjörður, Iceland, in 1853. He moved with his family to Wisconsin in 1873, and after a stint as a lumberjack he moved to Alberta in 1888, where he owned a small homestead near present-day Markerville, Alberta until his death in 1927. This was a tiny Icelandic community about 1,250 kms west of the principal Icelandic settlement at Gimli in Manitoba. Now there are two things to remember about this location. The first is that it is one of the most beautiful places in the world. His little farm was on the Canadian Prairies just on the cusp of the foothills of the Rockies, and not far from this little bit of landscape:
These mountains appear constantly in his poems. The second is that this was no place for the faint of heart, or for seekers of luxury. Pioneering in the Canadian West in the 1890s was harder work than any Canadian is likely to experience today, a world where every trivial journey was on horseback, where the temperature can plummet to ‑50C, and soar to +40C, where tornadoes, hailstorms, terrifying blizzards, and torrential thunderstorms abound, and where a drought or a rise in freight rates at the railhead could quickly bankrupt a farm or ranch. Electricity did not arrive until long after Stephan died. The little Icelandic settlement still exists, in the form of a “hamlet or designated place” with a population of 38. The dairy he helped found is still there. The Lutheran church, painted a brilliant white like most wooden prairie churches, is still kept up. And, the house he built by hand is still there, really very charming in design, fortunately now cared for as an Alberta Provincial Historical Site.
Stephan had complex and mixed feelings about Canada, as he did about Iceland. I know the region he was born in, and it too is a land of natural beauty with a harsh climate. Those wonderful Icelandic ponies, no doubt descended from the one he loved as a child, roam about on grasslands strikingly similar to those of Alberta. But Iceland was soul-crushingly poor when he was born there, especially in a remote corner of the island like Skagafjörður. The country is wealthy now, but the primitive little sod-huts, barely different from those of the Viking Sagas, remain scattered across the barren landscape to charm the tourists. Many Icelanders chose to risk all to start a new life in Canada, confident that their tough upbringing would fit them to take on any challenge it could throw at them. In the end, it seems the hard but free life in Alberta suited Stephan, and he found some peace and satisfaction in the great blue skies and wind-blown grass that shimmered on the foothills of the Rockies. This he celebrated in the poem “Kanada”:
Menn trúðu því forðumm, um staumbarða strönd
þó stormurinn heima við bryti,
að fjarst úti í vestrinu lægju þó lönd,
þar logn eða sólskin ei þryti,
því þar hefði árgæzkan friðland sér fest
og frelsið og mannúðin ― allt sem er bezt.
It was formerly believed, on a sea-battered shore
though the storm at home blasted,
that in the distant west there still lay lands,
where calm and sun never ended,
for there the good season had found its retreat
and freedom and compassion ― all that is best.
Þeim lét ekki sigling, en hugsuðu hátt;
við hafið þeir dreymandi stóðu,
er sól hné að viði í vestriny lágt
í vorkveldsins bláköjjyrnóðu,
þá von manns og langanir líða með blæ
út lognsléttan, sólgylltan, víðfaðman sæ.
They set no sail, but thought high,
by the ocean they dreaming stood,
as the sun slid into the lowest west
in the evening’s blue-misted spring dusk,
then hope and desire glide out with the breeze
on the still-bank, sun-gilt, wide-armed sea.
Þó enn flæði höf, þau sem aðskildu lönd,
er auðfarin leið yfir sæinn.
Og Markland vort, Kanada, hug sinn og hönd
þér heimurinn rétti yfir æginn.
En Hellenum aðeins í óð gaztu birzt ―
en íslenzkum sækonung bauðstu þig fyrst.
Though oceans still food, that separate lands,
the passage across is effortless.
And our Markland, Canada, its genius and care
the world held out to you over the sea,
To the Greeks you could only appear in a poem ―
but to an Icelandic sea king you gave yourself first.
Og enn rennir von manna augunum þreytt
að austan, um þig til að dreyma ―
þú góð reyndist öllum, sem unna þér heitt,
sem eiga hér munuð og heima.
Og allt á þér rætist og rót geti fest,
sem reikula mannsandann dreymt hefur bezt!
Still human hope turns its tired eyes
from the east, to dream about you ―
you proved good to all, who loved you fervently,
who possess here rapture and home.
And all with you is fulfilled and able to root,
which the unquiet spirit has dreamed best.
Kristjana Gunnars has translated a selection of Stephan’s poems that read very well in English. I can sound out the Icelandic from often hearing the language spoken, but of course, I have no idea what this poem sounds like to modern a Icelander. Does it’s style seem quaint or old-fashioned? Does it betray in its style Stephan’s distance from the Icelandic writers of his time? I would be delighted if someone familiar with Icelandic poetry would give me their opinion.
