Blaine

Icelanders

Web site of the Blaine Icelandic Heritage Society, an affiliate of the Icelandic National League of North America

Agust Breidford's Memoir: His Story

The Blaine Icelandic Heritage Society

Settlement History

Blaine Cemetery

Pt. Roberts Cemetery

Hillsdale Cemetery

Greenacres Cemetery

Webcams in the Icelandic World

Links

Coffee Time

Website Contact

 

More about The Tricking of Freya

 
Fall 2011 The Icelandic National League of North America's International Visits Program presents Icelandic Photographer, Mats Wibe Lund

Mats Wibe Lund
 

 

 Mats Wibe Lund practiced in the aerial photography section of the Royal Norwegian Air Force and with NATO in France. He studied in college in Germany. For several decades he operated his own photographic wholesale and retail firm, along with a portrait studio and a commercial photo lab. Today, his Icelandic Photo Library includes some 300,000 photographs spanning more than 50 years of Icelandic history.

To offer his clients the best service possible, he has opened the website www.mats.is
displaying photos of all Icelandic towns, villages, each and almost every farm and even a great many deserted farmsites throughout the entire country. There you may also enjoy many fine landscape photos. On www.mats.is you may browse as a guest. Permission for downloading of high res files must be applied for in writing. Just send him a letter on: mats@mats.is, or simply call (+354) 892 1012.

No matter whether you have international keyboard or an Icelandic one, you may search entering the particular name in nominative or look up different groups of photos as well as regions. Please check out the special keyword list above. If you don't find what you are looking for, chances are that this has still to be scanned and entered on the site. Please send and inquiry and it will be dealt with soon.

This autumn (2011) Mats will be visiting the clubs of The Icelandic National League of North America, presenting unique photos from the Icelandic homesteads of their ancestors. The presentations will be prepared especially for each club according to wishes submitted by their members. The wishes must be submitted no later than June 10th due to the time it takes to set it all up and also allowing Mats to add more aerial photos during the period June 15th- Sept. 1st."


The tour is planned for September to October, with only 11 venues, beginning in Toronto and ending in Seattle.

Photos will be available for sale but he suggests buying digital images rather than having him do the printing in Iceland and adding mailing costs.
 
   
Iceland: Europe's Wild Gem

One Showing Only

6 pm February 9, 2012

Blaine Public Library

 

 

  

The Blaine Icelandic Heritage Society is participating in this year's Donald K. Johnson Icelandic Film Series, which is made available to the Blaine group through its membership in the Icelandic National League of North America. Iceland: Europe's Wild Gem is a recent travelogue of the country that will bring back memories for recent visitors and perhaps give future travelers the desire to make that next trip Iceland. February 9th 6:00 PM Iceland: Europe's Wild Gem showing one night only at the Blaine Public Library.

 

 

Showing One Time Only, 6 pm March 8, 2012 at the Blaine Public Library:
The Icelandic National League of North America presents The Donald K. Johnson Icelandic Film Series Next Offering:

The Date of the "Dreamland" showing will be announced Summer 2011.View the trailer here.

 

 
   
 
 
 

BIHS members posing for their 2010 pre-Thorrablot (Þorrablót)  photo.
 
 
    This site is an ongoing effort to document the Icelandic settlement in Blaine, Washington. Icelandic immigrants came to Blaine directly from Iceland or from other Icelandic settlements in North America, primarily in the mid-western United States and Manitoba, Canada.

   Settler's occupations ranged from farm day laborers, mill-workers, fisherman, to farmers, shop-keepers, writers and a photographer.  Icelanders formed their own churches in Blaine, created choirs and joined in community orchestras.

   Icelandic writer, Margret Benedictson, who made her home in the Blaine area, documented the lives of several Icelandic settlers in the 1920s, thirties and forties  for the Icelandic language publication "Almanak." Her writings have been translated into English and published under the title, Icelanders on the Pacific Coast.

  Elias Breidford, was Blaine's unofficial photographer for several decades, and his extensive photographic collection is now housed at the Whatcom Museum of History and Art in Bellingham, Washington, where it is being inventoried and catalogued.