City Hall hosts Icelanders 
Honouring 150 years of Icelandic Winnipeg

The Mayor of Winnipeg, Scott Gillingham, hosted a luncheon at City Hall on December 4, 2025, to honour the arrival of the first Icelandic settlers in Winnipeg 150 years ago. Those in attendance, who came from Winnipeg and the Interlake, filled the Mayor’s Foyer at City Hall, where they enjoyed a delicious lunch, scintillating conversations, and short addresses by the mayor and Consul General Vilhjálmur Wiium.

The mayor offered a well-researched, carefully crafted address in which he looked back at the reasons behind Icelanders making the long journey to Manitoba, the opportunities that awaited them here, and the contributions they have made to Canadian society, especially here in Winnipeg. (Lögberg-Heimskringla hopes to publish the mayor’s remarks in a future issue.)

Consul General Vilhjálmur Wiium, who had recently flown back to Winnipeg from British Columbia, reflected on the struggles faced by the first immigrants – something that puts our present-day complaints about the inconvenience of air travel into proper perspective.

“You’re sitting there [on the plane] just complaining and then you start thinking 150 years back.” It makes you wonder about why they went to all the trouble. “And I think if there’s one word, then I think you [Mayor Gillingham] used that there: it’s opportunity. They believed that there would be opportunity for a better life, for better alternatives for their children by coming here.”

“Many stayed here in Winnipeg,” Vilhjálmur continued, while most continued to New Iceland. Both Winnipeg and Manitoba benefited from their presence, and the benefits spilled over back in Iceland, too. The capital that the immigrants developed here helped to finance the first Icelandic bank and steamship company. New methods of agriculture were communicated back to the homeland. Icelandic pilots were trained here. The connection between Iceland and Manitoba that began 150 years ago was mutually beneficial. “I think we sometimes forget about this. I think it’s important for us to remember.”