In 1999, the Icelandic National League (Þjóðræknisfélag Íslendinga) laid the foundation for a special collaboration intended to strengthen ties between Icelanders and people of Icelandic descent from the United States and Canada – the Icelanders of the West.

This collaboration was named after Snorri Þorfinnsson, who was the first Icelander born in North America in about 1004 AD in the area known today as L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Over the past twenty-five years, the Snorri Programs have enabled many young people build cultural connections between both sides of the Atlantic.

Recently, the Árni Magnússon Institute and the Snorri Programs signed a collaboration agreement in the field of language and cultural education for descendants of the Icelanders of the West in North America.

In recent years, participants in the Snorri Programs have regularly attended guest lectures about Icelandic society at the Institute’s summer school and visited the manuscript exhibition World in Words.

The main partners of the Snorri Programs today are the the Norden Association in Iceland and the Icelandic National League.

In the photo from left to right: Branislav Bédi, project manager in the Icelandic Department at the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, Guðrún Nordal, Director of the Institute, Soffía Ásgeirs Óskarsdóttir, acting Chair of the Icelandic National League, and Atli Geir Halldórsson, project manager of the Snorri Programs.