The Viking Immigrants: Icelandic North Americans by L. K. Bertram

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Viking Immigrants: Icelandic North Americans by L. K. Bertram Kirsten Wolf The Viking Immigrants: Icelandic North Americans. By L. K. Bertram. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020. ix + 228 pp. Illustrations, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $26.96 paper. Research on North Americans of Icelandic descent has focused primarily—though not exclusively—on the language and literature of the immigrants along with the early history of their settlements in North America, primarily Canada. Accordingly, this book, which straddles history, ethnography, anthropology, folklore, and gender studies, is most welcome in that it "focuses on the unseen qualities—the immigrant habits, ideas, and traditions observed by so many Icelandic visitors and the distinctive, everyday popular culture that emerged in North American Icelandic communities" (5). The book is the result of extensive archival work in both Iceland and Canada, many interviews and interactions with descendants of the immigrants, and a critical assessment of previous historical research. In her lengthy introduction, Bertram provides among other things a brief history of the Western Icelanders, as they are typically called in Iceland. The story has been told many times, but Bertram tells it especially well, and what is novel about her story is that here and elsewhere she pays considerable attention to the Icelanders' relations and interactions with local Indigenous people. In the five chapters following the introduction, she turns to material culture, for "material culture, or the history of objects, offers a helpful alternative for understanding both everyday historical life and the complexity of historical populations" (19). The first chapter ("Dressing Up: Clothing and Upward Mobility in the Early Immigrant Community, 1870–1900") explores the role of clothing in the lives of the immigrants and the way in which they abandoned traditional Icelandic fashions in favor of North American garments. The second chapter ("The Coffee Pot and King Bacchus: Icelandic Drinking Cultures") examines the cultural and political history of drink—coffee and alcohol—in Icelandic North American society. As Bertram points out, the Icelandic immigrants were relatively united in their efforts to maintain their coffee culture on a continent where tea drinking was the norm. When it came to alcohol, they were very divided, and this resulted in the establishment of several temperance movements led mostly by women. In chapter 3 ("Unsettling Apparitions: Power, Ghost Stories, and Superstitious Belief"), Bertram turns to forms of culture less visible to outside eyes, that is, the belief in supernatural beings such as hidden people and ghosts. The focus of chapter 4 ("Main Street Vikings: Anglicization, Spectacle, and the Two World Wars") is the image of the Viking. During periods of anti-immigrant sentiment, the Icelandic immigrants emphasized their Viking heritage in literature, on roadside monuments, in parades, and so forth as a way in which to legitimize their settlement in the New World. The final chapter ("Icelandic Cake Fight: A Brief History of Vínarterta") discusses the vínarterta, a fruit torte considered a special Icelandic cake by North Americans of Icelandic descent, yet now virtually unknown in Iceland. As noted by Bertram, the cake remains a powerful symbol of Icelandic immigrant culture, yet it is also the subject of contention, as there are conflicting opinions about the correct or original recipe for the torte. [End Page 164] (In an appendix, Bertram prints a number of vínarterta recipes, including one from 1795.) A conclusion, notes, a bibliography, and a name and subject index round off the volume. The Viking Immigrants: Icelandic North Americans is a joy to read, and L. K. Bertram is to be congratulated on her fine work. There is much to be learned from this well-written and well-structured book. It is copiously illustrated with black-and-white photographs culled from individuals and archives. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Icelandic culture in North America. Kirsten Wolf Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic University of Wisconsin–Madison Copyright © 2022 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln