(Nya Svenska Pressen)
Nr. 24.	VANCOUVER. B. C Torsdagen den 19 juni 1941.
FESTIVAL NUMBER
Program Highlights
Festi val time is near
The Annual Scandinavian Midsum-mer Festival is just a few days away. At Seymour Park on the North Shore, Scandinavians from near and far will gather on Sunday by the thousands. This transplanting and reviving out here of the ancient Nordic tradition has become an estblished fact in Vancouver. A beautiful custom from the home-lands, re-lived, with keen and thorough joy, every year at Midsummer time.
Sons and daughters of old Thule will gather there, sons and daughters of Sweden, Norway, Denmark; Finland and Iceland; late days’ children of Heimskringla, still akin to the gods of Valhalla. They will gather at Seymour Park for Midsummer celebration as in days of yore, and with them their chiid-ren and Canadian friends.
Let us meet, every one of us, once more to LIVE a Midsummer Day!
It is hardly possible to give a full and exact account of the Festival program, but we c an name some of the highlights and some of those partici-pating.
Attomey General Gordon S. Wis-mer has wired consent to the Festival Committee’s request that he be the speaker of the day. Mr. Magnus Elia-son, President of the Central Commit-tee, will also speak.
Ed. Anderberg’s Festival Band will provide music; vocal solos will be ren-dered by Herbert Nystrom, John Christensen and possibly others; The Norwegian Male Chorus under the di-rection of Monrad Malmin, will sing; Two children’s teams will perform folk-dances; A young Icelandic artist, Leon Bjarnason, winner of First Prize at B. C. Musical Festival this year, will ren-der violin solos, and last but not least, the crowning of the Midsummer Queen.
A Message from the President.
Here we present a group picture of the five pretty young ladies ,who have been chosen by their respective national groups as Candidates for Midsummer Queen. The final choice will be made at the Festival before the crowning ceremony, which is to be performed bv the Government representative and official speaker Mr. Gordon S. Wismer.
The Danish Shepherd Roy
Looked Westward.
My Dear Fellow Scandinavians: |
With the approaching of mid-j summer we are reminded once j more that the time is getting1 short till the Scandinavian Mid-I summer Festival will be held. As we see elsewhere in this paper it will be held on June 22nd at
mittee is a body that we ought to do our utmost to build up: and strengthen. At present it re-presents fifteen different sorie-ties of Norwegian, Swedish, Dan-ish, Finnish and Icelandic extrac-tion. Through added co-opera-tion on behalf of the -Scandinavian organizations and our Coun-try folks in general we could work so much more effeetiveiy to preserve our national customs . and traditions. For instance through our joint efforts and in- j ereased and better team work, this Annual Festival is becoming i more attraetive as the years go by.
So Friends I wish to meet all of you on the 22nd, and to those I of you who unfortunately cannot । come for some reason, 1 wish to extend to you Midsummer greet-ings from the Central Committee.
Yours for a successful Midsummer Festival
Magnus Eliason.
Seymour Park. On behalf of the Central Committee I wish to ex-tend to all Scandinavians and their friends a hearty invitation to attend this year's Festival. Our committee has been working for the past two months preparingj for this one big day for our countrymen. Yes, one big day, because this is the one time of the year when we can gather in large numbers as Scandinavians, | enjoy a program with talent from | the five Nordic countries, witness the selection and the crowning of this year s Midsummer Queen and take in the various events that have been planned for this gathering.
But the Midsummer Festival has a greater meaning to us than I just to go out to Seymour Park i and enjoy the program ’öf the day. This is our best opportunity i to meet pur friends as it is be-coming a custom with our people to attend this major gathering every year. There we can get to- ! gether in a real Scandinavian way, share with one another that real Scandinavian spirit. Talk about old times, about when we came from our homeland or when our parents came or else our grandparents as the case may be.
The Scandinavian Central Com-
RADIOGRAM
Det största statslånet
i Sveriges ekonomiska historia, tecknat på knappa ett och ett halvt år, nämligen 1,653, miljoner kronor, väntas snart vara helt inbetalat och taget i bruk för försvarets stärkande och produktionens främjande. (Allt detta har tecknats samtidigt som en rad extra skatter tillkommit.)
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En explosionsolycka,
som krävde sex människoliv ■ inträffade på eftermiddagen den 26 maj i aktiebolaget Trionyls; sprängämnesfabrik i Tostarp i utanför Ängelholm i Skåne.
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Svenska frivilliga röja mark i Finland.
Förbundet Svenska Frivillig- i kåren har accepterat en inbjudan från Finlands Vapenbrödraförbund att i sommar deltaga i röjning och nyodlingar i Finland. Även Lunds och Uppsala studentkårer komma att deltaga.
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Inhemsk smörjolja, industriellt producerad i stora kvantiteter, är inte längre någon hägrande framtidsdröm för Sveriges motormän. Fyra ton kvalitativt högklassig smörjolja har man lyckats framställa ur tjära i en fabrik i Stockholm, meddelar professor Edy Velander i Ingenjörs-| vetenskapsakademien. Kostnader 1 na för framställningen röra sig
1 he unsuccesful candidates will serve as the Queen s Maids of Honor. The candidates are, (from left) : Stella Sören-sen, for Denmark; Olöf Sigurdson. for Iceland; Ruby Arneson, for Sweden; Nancy Ogren, for Finland; and Ruth Olsen, for Norway.
inte heller om några fantasisummor. men äro givetvis bundna till marknadspriset på ved. En del rent kompletterande forskningsarbete återstår emellertid ännu innan smörjmedlet kan komma ut i marknaden.
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Restaurang-serveringen under kontroll.
Livsmedelskommissionen kommer att utfärda föreskrifter för
IFjI	vit ivvÄ JLVxJL
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Nu lyser solen '.'rån klarblå himmel över saftg'. cn äng och blånad sjö. Sommams härlighet i brokigt vimmel mognat har från vårens späda frö.
Hör, hur fågelskarans glädje brusar, den stämmer upp en mäktig symfoni; hör forsens brus och vind i skog, som susar. Gudomligt skön är denna harmoni!
Men icke av naturen ensam är den värnad, den lag, som ger oss samförstånd och frid; ty Nordens folk, de också går i hämad 4 emot den makt, som alstrar våld och strid. De folk i Nord, som främst bland världens länder på kärleks grund, och rätt, har byggt sitt hem; som uti andra raser sett blott fränder och framåt, uppåt velat hjälpa dem.
I västanland en spillra finns av samma släkte, vars gärning också dem vid fädren band. De odlat jord, byggt jä' nvägsrät, som sträckte sig från Atlanten bort till Stilla Havets rand. Och fast ibland de smått förringades av andra, så höjde de dock ej i hat sin röst.
Ej framgång gjordes med att missnöjt klandra, den vanns med senig arm och redbart bröst.
I västerled i dag, den vackra sommardagen, vi gör som alltid seden var i Nordanland; vår samlingsrätt är här ej från oss tagen; Midsommardansen trå vi åter hand i hand. Starka är nu syskonringens länkar gjutna, dess inve band kan ingen slita loss.
En dag skall Nordens folk stå sammanslutna; och då skall flamma starkt dess frihets bloss.
ADOLF VIKSTEN.

begränsning av antalet maträtter på restaurangerna samt även om sättet för utspisningens ordnande. Från den I juni reglerar kommissionen serveringen av även icke ransonerade varor.
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Svenskt uthaiiigaeUvekord
i segelflygning
har satts av Gösta Tärn’und med tiden 5 timmar och 12 minuter.
Out in the heather on the pen-insula of Jutland in Denmark a halfgrown boy was herding sheep .
Sometimes he would wonder if hc should ever see what was behind those brown hills shim-merir.g in the heat towards west, ; those hills which limited his ) world and was a challenge to his imagination. But one fine day : he left the sheep behind him to fend for themselves, and set out westward to find out what the , rest of the world was like, and he did not stop when he came to the ocean, it was only a new obstacle to be explored and con-I quered.
One early spring day he landed on a stränge coast, where the forest of fir and poplar was dark around him, but still he kept on going west in search of that pro-mised land he had seen in his dreams in the old country.
When he finally came to the prairie he saw that it was flat as his homelands moors, but in-‘ stead of heather this land was ' covered with golden wheat for miles and miles. The boy had i never before seen such an abun- I dance. Here, he thought, must | be plenty for everybody, here is ;
: where 1 am going to settle.
Time passed, depression came, rain got scarce, the crop got poor and prices worse. Finally he pul- ' led up his stakes and started westward again. Maybe, he i thought, he would find the pro-mised land beyond those snow-; covered mountains, which on i , clear days could be seen towards , west.
And that was how he came to Vancouver, the sprawling city at the edge of the ocean. The magnificence of the surrounding mountains, the beauty of its driv- | es and parks, its deepwater-ves-sels from the seven seas, but most of all the sea itself, spellbound him. Maybe in time he found out that even this was not the pro-mised land he had been looking I foi all his life, but time had passed, and the boy was not so young any more, besides he had found out, that the promised land is not to be found, unless | you help to ereate it yourself. He soon found company of other i ■ Danes, dried out farmers like himself, who now tried to make a living on small dairy-farms close to the city, tradesmen and businessmen, who in the fast growing city found ample opportunity to make a living, and every winter a host of farm-labourers
came in from the prairies to hi-bernate in thé city. Some of them got work and settled down, and before long there was a Danish community. Soon the need was there for a Danish minister, and after that the next step was
The Hon.
GORDON S. WISMER, K. C. Attorney General for British Columbia, who will be the principal speaker at the Midsummer Festival.
a church, not only for religious lile, but as a centre for Danish eulture and cömmunity-life as well. The Danish Lutheran Church was ereeted in 1937, mainly by voluntary labour and donations from the old country. This church is built like the country-churches in Denmark.
Before this, the Danish Bro-therhood was formed and affili-ated with. the Danish Brother-hood in U. S. This institution has lately grown very strong and ce-lebrated its ten years’ anniver-sary only last month.
During the last few. years the Danish community found out the value of co-operation. It was only natural then that they started looking farther afield. Side by side with the Danes, the Swedes, Norwegians, Finns and Iceland-ers had been organizing their communities; and then a few years back the Scandinavian Central Committee was formed. The organization is yet in its infancy, but judging by the zeal with which the leaders are going a-
(Coninued on page 2)