The University of Manitoba campuses are located on original lands of Anishinaabeg, Cree, Ojibwe-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the National Homeland of the Red River Métis. More
Our exhibition — Our Most Valuable Inheritance: Icelandic Language Publishing in Manitoba — celebrates a remarkable legacy of migrant resilience and cultural creativity. Arriving in large numbers from the 1870s onward, Icelandic settlers in Manitoba and beyond established a vibrant Icelandic-language publishing community that enabled them to keep their language alive, stay connected internationally, and shape new identities in North America. As the online story “Preserving the Most Precious Heirloom: Icelandic Language Publishing in Manitoba” shows, these newspapers, magazines and books were far more than mere print: they were lifelines across time and space, and they helped form a transnational community rooted in language, faith and book culture. Through scans of rare materials, archival audio, and trilingual narration (English, Icelandic, French), our project offers both specialists and general audiences an immersive experience of this print heritage — a heritage that remains as relevant today as ever.