The Icelandic Communities Association is honored to announce that Her Excellency Katrín Jakobsdóttir, prime minister of Iceland, will attend the 119th annual Deuce of August Icelandic Celebration in Mountain, North Dakota. The celebration runs from August 2 - 5. The prime minister will attend August 4, will take part in the morning parade, and will be the keynote speaker at the heritage program Saturday at 2 p.m. in the Mountain Community Center.
With her visit, Prime Minister Jakobsdóttir will be the fifth sitting prime minister to attend the celebration, beginning with the 2005 visit of Prime Minister Halldór ásgrímsson. The sixth prime minister, Ajarni Benediktsson, attended the celebration in 2012 while serving as the chairman of the Independence Party before later becoming minister of finance, and then prime minister, in January 2017.
The Deuce of August celebration hosted the former president of Iceland, ólafur Ragnar Grímsson during the 100th deuce of august celebration in 1999, and has been attended by multiple ambassadors from Iceland to the U.S. and Canada, and multiple cabinet ministers.
The Deuce of August Icelandic celebration has been certified by the North Dakota tourism department as the longest-running ethnic festival in the state of North Dakota and is the largest Icelandic ethnic event in the United States.
North Dakota officials who have been invited to attend include governor Doug Burgum, U.S. Senators Hoeven and Heitkamp, and Congressman Kevin Cramer.
For up-to-the-minute updates on the event, visit the “August the Deuce” Facebook page or www.thedeuce.org
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