Alex Robertson Textor

Manitoba: More on the New Icelandic Migration

I got some interesting responses to my post a couple of weeks ago on the expected migration of Icelanders to Manitoba over the next many months. At that point, there was buzz but little action. Now things are moving. Nancy Allan, Manitoba's Immigration Minister, spent most of this past week in Iceland hammering out a deal to lure work-hungry Icelanders in. See Mia Rabson's story in the Winnipeg Free Press (from last weekend) here. Iceland Review reports that a declaration of intent between Manitoba and Iceland was signed on Thursday, with the first public informational meeting about employment in Manitoba scheduled in Iceland on March 13.

Allan's visit has come under criticism from Aboriginal leader Dean Fontaine, who has advocated bringing more First Nations people into employment in the province; from other quarters, there have been complaints that Manitoba should be focused on recruiting workers from Canadian provinces hurt particularly badly by the recession. 

Another Icelandic Migration to Manitoba?

Some attention—though truth be told not as much as I'd have anticipated—has been devoted to the coming economic migration from Iceland. (Migrants to the country have already begun to depart in huge numbers. The BBC reported back in October about the exodus of Polish citizens, who have comprised the largest group of foreigners in the country many times over.) On a Monocle podcast a few editions ago, editors discussed where Iceland's economic migrants might be heading, suggesting that due to cultural links and the right of free movement, the Nordic countries were the obvious recipients.

But what about a possible migration westward? In yesterday's Globe and Mail, Patrick White writes a fascinating piece on the expected migration of Icelandic citizens ("...a trickle, not quite a torrent" in the words of Atli Ásmundsson, Iceland's consul-general in Winnipeg) to Gimli, Manitoba, a city of about 6000 north of Winnipeg. Gimli is the epicenter of Icelandic Canadian culture, and as such would be an obvious destination for economic migrants from Iceland.

But would savvy exiles from Reykjavík find cultural satisfaction in Gimli? Winnipeg, I dare to wager, would be a better fit. I'm a huge fan of the sorely underappreciated city, and have sung its praises in print. Winnipeg is a very creative place with loads of artists and other experimental types and an interesting ethnic and cultural mix. A modest influx would inject a distinctively Icelandic dose of creativity into the local scene, providing yet another dimension to a dynamic city already full of surprises.