About Lögberg-Heimskringla

Lögberg-Heimskringla

Lögberg-Heimskringla is a community newspaper serving the Icelandic community in North America — published twice per month from Winnipeg, Canada. Created in 1959 by the amalgamation of two rival weeklies, the Heimskringla and the Lögberg, which had published in North America since the 1880s, it is the institutional memory of the Icelandic diaspora: the continuous record of "Western Icelanders" from the immigration era to the present. In a community defined by its extraordinary literary tradition, the paper is both news source and cultural monument.

Overview

Lögberg-Heimskringla publishes in English (with Icelandic content) for the Icelandic-North American community — concentrated in Manitoba's Interlake (Gimli, the historic "New Iceland"), Winnipeg, and the diaspora across Canada and the United States. The coverage spans community news, Icelandic-Canadian and Icelandic-American affairs, news from Iceland, the literary and cultural life (poetry, fiction, history — the diaspora's defining pursuits), and the organizations sustaining Icelandic identity abroad. Published twice monthly from Winnipeg, it is the community's forum, archive, and gathering place in print.

History: The Rival Weeklies

Icelandic immigration to North America began in the 1850s, with the main wave from 1870 through 1914. Iceland has always been intensely literate — arguably fostering the most poets per capita of any country — and the immigrants felt keenly the need for Icelandic-language publications to preserve language and culture. The very first, Nýi Þjóðólfur, was handwritten by Jón Gudmundsson in 1876; the first press-printed paper, Framfari, appeared September 1, 1877, at Lundi. "Leifur" and others followed.

The first of the great weeklies was Heimskringla, founded by Frimann B. Anderson with Eggert Johannsson and Einar Hjörleifsson, first appearing September 9, 1886. The name derives from Snorri Sturluson's 13th-century sagas of the Norse kings — from "kringla heimsins" ("the round world"), the opening of the Ynglinga Saga. The first issue committed to covering Western Icelanders' interests — public affairs, employment, education — keeping them in touch with the homeland's politics and culture, politically independent, publishing fiction and poetry, but refusing to be an immigration agent. Early days brought personality clashes, financial straits, and a publishing gap from December 1886 to April 1887. Stability came in March 1898 when Baldvin L. Baldwinson became publisher and editor, prospering the paper until April 1913. After its first year, Heimskringla was Conservative in Canadian politics, Democratic in U.S. politics, with liberal religious views.

The rival, Lögberg, launched January 14, 1888 — founded by six men (Sigtryggur Jónasson, Bergvin Jónsson, Árni Frederickson, Einar Hjörleifsson formerly of Heimskringla, Ólafur Thorgeirsson, Sigurdur J. Johannesson), partly because immigrants' differing party and religious alignments demanded a competitor. The name means "Law Rock" — the rock from which the ancient Althing's lawspeaker read the codified laws. Lögberg claimed the mantle of the defunct Framfari and Leifur, declaring that if only one Icelandic weekly could survive, the better would remain. First editor Einar Hjörleifsson (until February 1895, then returned to Iceland) strengthened Winnipeg's Icelandic cultural groups and translated English books, poems, and stories into Icelandic for the paper. Lögberg began at four pages like its rival, doubled to eight on January 15, 1890, and introduced a women's interest column (edited by Ingibjörg Jónsson) in the 1950s.

Amalgamation and the Modern Paper

For several years before 1959, amalgamation had been discussed but not accepted — the rivalry was too entrenched, the loyalties too fierce. Dr. P. H. T. Thorlakson negotiated on behalf of Lögberg, Senator G. S. Thorvaldson on behalf of Heimskringla. The decisive pressure was financial: both newspapers needed to apply for funds from the Canada Iceland Foundation — considered too much for the Foundation to support two competing papers. A voluntary committee of five — chairman Stefan Hansen, Consul Grettir I. Johannson, Judge W. J. Lindal, and others — finally achieved the amalgamation in August 1959.

Both newspapers had been vital in keeping the Icelandic community informed: about communities in other places, politics and culture in the homeland, literature, religion, and North American politics. Different editors brought different ideas and emphases across their tenures. Both stressed loyalty to readers' North American communities and countries — the diaspora's dual allegiance. It was rare to find an Icelandic home in North America that did not subscribe to one or the other; some subscribed to both. But the political and religious differences made partisans: families were fiercely Heimskringla or fiercely Lögberg, the rivalry a defining feature of community life.

In 1959, the two historic rivals amalgamated as Lögberg-Heimskringla — uniting the "Law Rock" and the "Round World" into a single community voice. The merger ended seven decades of competition and created the institution that has served the Icelandic diaspora since. Published in Winnipeg — the historic centre of Icelandic North America — the paper moved from weekly to twice-monthly publication, reflecting both the community's linguistic assimilation (Icelandic-language readership declining through the generations) and the economics of ethnic publishing in the modern era.

Coverage and Audience

The paper serves the Icelandic diaspora of North America: the Manitoba Interlake communities — Gimli's Islendingadagurinn (Icelandic Festival), the New Iceland heritage sites, the lakefront towns where Icelandic settlement began — Winnipeg's Icelandic organizations (the clubs, the choirs, the cultural societies), the diaspora across Canada and the United States, and readers in Iceland itself following the "Western Icelanders" with curiosity and affection. The coverage blends community news (the events, the milestones, the organizational life), homeland news (Iceland's politics, culture, and affairs, keeping the diaspora connected), literary content (the poetry, fiction, and essays that are the community's lifeblood — the extraordinary literary productivity that Icelanders carried across the ocean), historical features (the immigration stories, the settlement narratives, the community's memory), and organizational announcements. The audience spans generations: the elders who grew up with the Icelandic-language papers, the middle generations sustaining the organizations and the festivals, and the young discovering their heritage through the paper's pages.

Cultural Significance

Lögberg-Heimskringla is more than a newspaper: it is the archive and the living memory of Icelandic North America. Its files — and its predecessors' — record 140 years of diaspora life: the immigration waves, the settlement of New Iceland on Lake Winnipeg's shores, the religious and political debates that divided and defined the community, the literary flowering (the poets and storytellers who made the diaspora a cultural force), the visits and exchanges with Iceland, the community's evolution from Icelandic-speaking immigrants to English-speaking descendants who still gather for the festivals and read the paper. For scholars of immigration, ethnicity, and the press, the paper's continuous run is a primary source of exceptional depth — few diaspora communities can trace themselves so completely in print. For the community itself, it is the proof of continuity: the "Western Icelanders" still have their voice, still argue their politics, still publish their poems — in the paper that unites the Law Rock and the Round World.

Ownership

Lögberg-Heimskringla is a community newspaper, owned and operated as a non-profit community institution serving the Icelandic diaspora. The community-ownership model has sustained it through the decades when commercial ethnic publishing collapsed.

Digital Presence

The paper maintains an online presence extending the twice-monthly print edition, with the website carrying news, archives, and subscription information. The digital edition reaches the dispersed diaspora — Icelandic descendants across North America and readers in Iceland. For the "Western Icelanders," Lögberg-Heimskringla remains the Law Rock and the Round World: the community's voice since 1886, in print and online.