In our first episode Iceland News talks to Carrie Simmons. She’s a Canadian of Icelandic descent and she’ll be returning to Iceland for the first time this summer to run in the Reykjavik marathon. We find out what it’s like to grow up in Canada with such a background and her trips to Gimli, Manitoba, as a youngster (home to the largest concentration of people of Icelandic ancestry outside Iceland).

In the second and final part of our interview with Jackson Crawford, Iceland News moves away from Star Wars to find out more about Crawford’s background. READ PART ONE HERE.
Saunders: How did you come to settle on Icelandic and Old Norse as an area of study?
Crawford: Well, I could tell that in a pretty long story, and I’m not sure how long of a story you want. I’ll try to keep it short. I was a dinosaur kid, interested especially in how dinosaurs evolved. When it came time to decide …

Jackson Crawford is a 24-year-old American studying Old Norse and Icelandic in Wisconsin. His post, Tattúínárdœla saga: If Star Wars Were an Icelandic Saga, has been making sounds right across the Internet. Jim Saunders caught up with Crawford in part one of a two part interview.

Saunders: Can you tell me a little bit more about how you came to write the post?
Crawford: It actually started with a really brief Facebook exchange with a colleague, Ben Frey. When I first joined Facebook 2 or so years ago, I wasn’t really …

-Sturla Sighvatsson (second from right) at REVA car signing agreement.
*** Read part one of this interview here.
IN: How is the program going right now? Do you already have charging posts out in the cities? How’s the roll-out going for that?
Sighvatsson: We will start the roll-out next year (2010). We are still in the design phase. First of all we set out and visited companies both in the US and the UK. They were building charging stations and offering them at point of sale to customers. But we quickly found …

Iceland News talked to Sturla Sighvatsson of Northern Lights Energy to find out more about electric cars in Iceland and their 2012 initiative.

- On the streets of Iceland next year? CREDIT

2012 – New Beginning, announces the arrival of the electric car. Our goal is to implement a system in Iceland, which will enable the Icelandic public to convert their whole fleet, in to electric cars.

IN: How did you come to start the 2012 initiative separate Icelandic New Energy?
Sighvatsson: One and half years ago we decided that it was time …

Iceland News spoke to residents of Icelandic descent living in London, Ontario, Canada. This is part one of a multi-part series telling their stories.

INEWS: I’m listening to Icelandic folk music… it’s a song called Draumalandith… in English… that’s dreamland… and it’s the favorite song for one London resident of Icelandic-descent. Here I am in her suburban home… listening to Draumalandith… listening to her story of maintaining her heritage.

Ardath: My name is Ardath Valdise-Finnbogason-Hill, which is a mouthful and always has been for people who have met me for …