The U.S. and Iceland Share a Love of National Parks

We had the pleasure of welcoming to the residence a group of Icelandic park rangers who recently attended a 3-week long seminar in the Washington DC area organized by the U.S. National Park Service.   The seminar is used to share American practices in national park management, covering such issues as emergency services, community partnerships, graphic design, and marketing.  A second group of Icelandic park rangers will participate in another seminar in the spring when they will visit parks in the states of Oregon and Washington.   These training opportunities were made available thanks to the generosity of the Alcoa Foundation and the participation of the Scandinavian American Foundation.   We were delighted to share with our Icelandic friends the fruits of a proud tradition of establishing and protecting our nation’s parks.

Katonah Museum and the Scandinavian American Foundation directors visit Iceland

We had the pleasure of welcoming a delegation from the Katonah Museum in New York and several members of the Scandinavian American Foundation. The group, which has longstanding artistic ties with Iceland, visited Reykjavik and other parts of the country to look at some of the latest pieces of Icelandic art. Both groups are striving to strengthen ties between Iceland and the United States through art. Among our guests, we had two wonderful and accomplished Icelandic artists: Steinunn þórarinsdóttir and þórdís Alda Sigurdardóttir.