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Get in touch with your inner Dane at this weekend's Leif Erikson Day festival in Burnaby

The Scandinavian Community Centre is marking Leif Erikson Day with a festival this weekend. Visitors are invited to turn out on Saturday, Oct.
AbrahamAnghik Ruben
Sculpture by Abraham Anghik Ruben is featured for the Leif Erikson Day Festival this weekend at the Scandinavian Community Centre.

The Scandinavian Community Centre is marking Leif Erikson Day with a festival this weekend.

Visitors are invited to turn out on Saturday, Oct.  5 for a day full of events celebrating Leif Erikson’s spirit of discovery, with presentations on both Inuit-Norse contact in the Arctic and on the 1619/20 voyage of Danish Captain Jens Munk to Hudson Bay.

Starting at noon, you can stop in to see an exhibition of Inuit-Norse sculpture by Abraham Anghik Ruben, who holds the Order of Canada for his contribution to Canadian art. Ruben’s stone and bronze sculptures reflect the stories, myths and legends of his Western Arctic heritage as well as images expressing his interest in Inuit-Norse contact. At 2 p.m., Ruben will give a talk called Consequences of Inuit-Norse Contact, exploring the evidence of that contact and the consequences it had.

At 1 p.m., the festival will officially open, and, at 1:10 p.m., pastor Susanne Rasmussen of the Danish Lutheran Church will give a talk on Pastor Rasmus Jensen, who travelled with Munk and was likely the first Lutheran pastor to conduct a church service in North America.

At 3 p.m., retired pastor Otto Christensen will give a talk looking more closely at the Jens Munk voyage, exploring how Munk – 200 years before Sir John Franklin and 300 years before Roald Amundsen – came closer to finding the Northwest Passage than anyone before him.

At 4:30 p.m., the bar will open with music by the Silver Winds trio (Ingrid Sochting, Sue Banning and Leslie Uhlig), and at 5 p.m., there will be a dinner ($15 per person).

At 7 p.m., there will be a screening of the movie Jens Munk NordvestXpeditionen, by Danish director-actor Ole Jappe, shown with English subtitles.

For information, see www.scancentre.org, email cthauber12@gmail.com or call 778-228-2334.