Chair of the Marketing, PR, and Fundraising Committee

The Lögberg-Heimskringla was a regular “read” in the Borgford household where Karen grew up in the Icelandic immigrant area of Winnipeg’s West End. Through both her paternal and maternal grandparents who emigrated to Canada passed down many Icelandic traditions.

After attending the Snorri Plus program in 2007, Karen pledged to support the Icelandic heritage and culture within her community, becoming and remaining an active member of the Icelandic Canadian Fron and the Jon Sigurdsson Chapter IODE boards, serving as President on both. As a long-time subscriber to the L-H she has been a sometime contributor. She sits on the Iceland Canada Foundation Board as the representative for INLNA. In 2016, Karen was honoured to have been chosen as Fjallkona for the Icelandic Festival of Manitoba.

Throughout her career and in retirement, Karen has been an educator having worked as a teacher, principal, and school board administrator and consultant. She has served on several boards including the Manitoba Lotteries Corporation and the Public Utilities Board, both as vice-chair.

Karen loves art, travel, casual golf, and her time at Arnes on Lake Winnipeg. Karen and her husband, Dwight are the proud parents of two daughters, a son-in-law and two grandchildren.

Chair of the Governance Committee
Member of the Finance Committee

Bev has been involved in her Icelandic heritage since she was a young child and attended the events of the Edmonton Icelandic Society, currently the Icelandic Canadian Club of Edmonton, with her parents.  Her father, Walter, served as club president, a role Bev undertook many years later, and her mother Beulah served on a number of committees within the club.

Her Icelandic connection is her father’s father, Sigurður Arason, who was born in Syðri-Brú, Árnessýsla, in 1891.

In addition to serving in various roles on the board of the Icelandic Canadian Club of Edmonton, Bev has served as Convention Director, 2nd Vice-President, President and Past President of the Icelandic National League of North America and also currently sits on the board of þjóðræknisfélag Íslendinga. In 2019, she received the Knights Cross, Order of the Falcon, from the President of Iceland, Guðni Jóhannesson. A retired pharmacist, Bev and her husband, Gordon, live on an acreage east of Sherwood Park, AB, with their pug, Ranger. Bev has two adult sons, Matt and Rob, who are often the recipients of various quilts as she is a passionate quilter.

Member of the Governance Committee

Bill Perlmutter has had a long involvement with Lögberg-Heimskringla having served two previous times as Treasurer, as well as being active with other Icelandic organizations, including currently being on the Board of the Canada Iceland Foundation. Bill had a career with the federal government and now enjoys an active retirement with a membership at the Reh-Fit Centre and involvement with the nostalgia radio station CJNU 93.7 FM and the Manitoba Classic and Antique Auto Club. A lifelong Winnipegger, Bill and his wife Kristine have three children and two grandsons.

Member of the Governance Committee

Dianne O’Konski is a retired healthcare project manager living in Lakeville, Minnesota.  She became active in the Icelandic community in 2005 and has served as President of the Icelandic Hekla Club in Minneapolis, and as Director on the Icelandic National League of North America.  She is currently President of the Icelandic National League of the United States.  You may contact Dianne at dianneokonski@gmail.com.

Shawn Bjornsson is married to Sherry and together they have two adult children, Svein Kjartan and Xander Lárus.
Shawn has been a self-employed financial advisor since 1990 and is currently a partner in Four Points Financial Solutions. He loves his job and has so many excellent clients he’s assisted for many years. 
As a proud Canadian, Shawn is also very proud of his 100% Icelandic ancestry. Currently he is a past president and member of Gimli Icelandic Canadian Society as well as a member of Icelandic Canadian Fron.
Shawn sits on a few other boards and is presently president of the Palliative Manitoba Board. For over 10 years he has served on the board of the L-H with most of those years as the chairperson of the annual golf tournament, The Icelandic Open, one of the main fundraisers for the paper. 
His biggest passions are family, sports, work, and helping others. He was very involved with his son's sports and coached them for years until they graduated high school. Then at age 53, Shawn took up running to stay active. He does all his running outside and has done many races and a few marathons, including Boston and Reykjavik. In the running community he's called Viking.   

Blair joined the LH Board in December 2021. She traces her Icelandic roots through her mother, Heather (Amundson) Lockhart of Selkirk, Manitoba. Blair participated in Snorri Plus in 2014, which ignited her passion for Iceland. She loves harðfiskur, knitting and vínarterta! Blair is a lawyer, although she started out her career as a geologist and loves rocks - another reason to love Iceland! As a lawyer, she has worked as a prosecutor, as well as legal counsel for mineral exploration companies and HSBC Bank. She is now a Commissioner for the British Columbia Utilities Commission. She and her husband Tony live in BC and have two children. 



Blair formerly served as president of CISV Canada, a volunteer children’s peace education organization that champions building global friendships. Blair coordinated the Vancouver portion of the 2019 Snorri West program and came on board as Snorri West Co-Director in 2020. She cycles to work, keeps a vegetable garden, reads a lot, and walks 10,000 steps every day.

Kathi is excited to join the Board of the LH and hopes to assist with the paper’s marketing in fundraising efforts. She recently retired from Siloam Mission where she worked as the Director of Development and Lead Executive for the last five years.

Kathi is strongly influenced by her Icelandic heritage and has been volunteering with the Icelandic Festival of Manitoba since 2002. She was President of the Festival in 2009/10 and the co-chair of the Viking Park Campaign from 2015 until its conclusion in 2021. She has also been a member and a supporter of the Jon Sigurdson Chapter of the IODE for more than a decade.

Kathi married John Neal in 1984. They have two children, Shelly and Samuel. In retirement she plans to continue focusing on interests she has always loved, writing, reading, travelling and most importantly, spending more time with family and friends.

Ian, a proud Vestur Islendingur married to Marie, a proud Dene and our two sons with three grandchildren who are like the volcanos of Iceland, erupting here and there as they navigate the Grade one era. Still doing pharmacy work and adjusting to the city after all our time in Northern Manitoba.

Very proud to be on the board of LH as I remember my Icelandic relatives carefully scanning each issue and beaming when their area was mentioned.

Going forward we much cherish our Icelandic roots and one sure way is to keep up the literary tradition that LH provides.

Jon Sigurdson is a retired lawyer and Supreme Court of BC Judge.  His parents are Icelandic. Norma Benson born in Selkirk and Harold Sigurdson born in Riverton.  He currently teaches at Allard Law School and in the New Federally Appointed Judges program.  He was formerly the President of the UBC Law Alumni Association.  He works as a contributing Editor to the Advocate, the magazine for the legal profession in BC.  

His father Harold SIgurdson was the former Honorary Consul to Iceland for British Columbia.  His daughter Krista was a member of the Snorri Program and visited Iceland with her cousins.  His Amma Benson worked for many years for Columbia Press which printed Logberg.  

Jon is married to Lynn Smith KC OC and has  2 daughters and 4 grandchildren.   He plays golf regularly but poorly and enjoys writing and recording country/folk music, having released 2 albums on line, Songs of Jon SIgurdson and Afi Country: Songs of Jon Sigurdson Vol 2

Born in Oregon and having lived for many years in Seattle, David Johnson retired after 30 years of government service. Since 2017, he's lived in Indianapolis. He earned a Bachelor Degree in Business/Finance in 1982 and a Law Degree in 1989.  David joined our L-H Board in November 2024.

David has been an avid genealogist for decades, but it wasn't until about 2010 that he dived head-first into all-things Icelandic. He was on the Board of the Icelandic Club of Greater Seattle for years and was the Chair of the INLNA Convention there in 2013.     
Having had the "credential" of participating in the Snorri Plus program, David applied for the Snorri Internship at Hofsós. He was selected and spent the entire summer of 2024 living in Hofsós and working six days a week at the Iceland Emigration Centre Museum.  He describes that as a remarkable time of solitude, contemplation and beauty mixed with wonderful high notes meeting so many visitors from all corners of the world to help tell the story of why so many Icelanders left their homeland for North America and beyond.

David also is a founding member of the INLUS and has been on the Board since its inception in 2019.  Over 150 students have started a language learning journey with David who teaches the INLUS Basic 1.0 Icelandic language class.  He looks forward to supporting the L-H mission because it's one of those important treasures and repositories we VesturÍslendingar have. We cannot let it fade away on our watch!!

Coming from Gimli, Owen has a deep connection to New Iceland that was a rich part of his upbringing. His mother Julianna runs the New Iceland Heritage Museum, so his connection continues to grow stronger, as does his grasp of the Icelandic language. As a participant in the 2022 Snorri Program, Owen became inspired to share so many amazing aspects of Icelandic history and culture.

In the spring of 2023, Owen graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Supply Chain Management and Marketing.  He now works full time for Richardson International in Winnipeg, MB. He spends his weekends out in Gimli.