bout de papier, Vol. 11, No. 3 (1994) — Fall 1994 // Automne 1994, pp. 28–29
Viggi Ring was a remarkable woman in her time. The daughter of a Danish country parson, she embarked upon a new lite in Canada after World War II. The only Immigration Foreign Service officer to have been ordered deported from Canada, she capped her career by being appointed as Canada’s Consul-General in Glasgow. Her involvement in international affairs continued after her retirement as she maintained close links with the Canadian Immigration Historical Society, PAFSO and the Canadian Institute of International Affairs.
Viggi received her MA at the University of Copenhagen in 1946. After a postgraduate fellowship at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, she became an assistant editor at the Danish Section of the CBC International Service in Montreal. Her expertise in Danish was evaluated, as she told the story, by one of those “experts” that Canada produces in such circumstances — an Austrian who had spent some years in Sweden and knew a Dane who had become a Prime Minister! After several six-month extensions of her stay, the Department of Mines and Resources (then responsible for Immigration) posed her the question: was she going back to Denmark or did she intend to stay? As Viggi said, this was purely rhetorical at this point because legally there was no way for her to apply either in Canada or in Denmark. At that time, only domestics and farm workers were acceptable as immigrants and she was neither. But those who interviewed her were so impressed that they found another way — to place her, most legally, under an order of deportation for “not having been in possession of a valid and subsisting immigrant visa upon her arrival”. Her appeal to the departmental appeal board was permitted and granted. Thus, her order of deportation was reversed and she became a “Landed Immigrant” in August of 1950.
As Canadian citizenship was years away, she did not consider applying with the federal government. Viggi did believe she could be useful in a job which dealt with immigrants. The CPR Colonization department in Montreal interviewed her for a position travelling on immigrant trains between Halifax and Winnipeg, resolving any disputes arising in between. When Viggi was told they did not hire women, her interviewer received a direct sermon on the equality on the sexes! Viggi did concede that this job might have been more than a formidable challenge.
The CPR official, who had a Danish connection, insisted that she apply at the Montreal Immigration Office. After being told emphatically that there was no job for her, she was then hired as one of a group of multilingual CR3s to assist immigrants who had arrived in large numbers in December 1951 when the displaced persons’ camps in Europe were closed down. Although presumed to be interpreters, they were in no time working on their own as Placement Officers. In 1952, she officially joined the Department of Citizenship and Immigration.
In October 1956, Viggi became a Canadian citizen and immediately after passed the qualifying exam for entry into the civil service. This was just after the Hungarian revolution with all the challenges of establishing the many distressed refugee clients. In 1960 she entered a competition for the Foreign Service. There were only nine successful candidates and Viggi, the only female, was fifth.
Her first posting in November 1960 was to Denmark where she ran into some resistance from applicants who thought she spoke Danish too well to be a “real” Canadian. A cross posting to Egypt was followed by becoming Officer-in-Charge in Helsinki for two years, and then in Stockholm, responsible for Finland, Norway, Iceland and Sweden.
From 1972 to 1975, Viggi was Program Manager in Belgrade, responsible for Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria.
Thomson, who served with Viggi on his first tour of duty abroad, reminisced about those years at the service held in Viggi’s memory in Ottawa on June 30:
“Belgrade in those years had a huge workload and a rambunctious collection of junior officers. Viggi ran this three ring circus with a firm but guiding and caring hand. The Belgrade Visa operations were affectionately referred to as ’Ma Ring and her Ring Ring’. Viggi led by example — she not only worked harder than anyone else but took everything in her stride and set enduring standards in terms of ethical behaviour and dedication to the people of Canada.
“Viggi was miles ahead of her time in terms of what roles and responsibilities a woman could aspire to and fulfil. Through a process of brute competence and unstinting commitment, she forcefully dismissed any nonsense about what was women’s work. But most important of all was her compassion for the needs and feelings of those seeking to go to Canada. She drew from her own experience as an emigré from post war Europe. Quite simply she gave me a test or reality check that I continue to use to this day and which I have in turn passed on to junior foreign service officers. Viggi required me to ask myself regularly: ’How would I feel if someone was dealing with me in the same manner as I was dealing with the person across the desk from me?’ But in case all this sounds like Joan of Arc — Viggi was not. She was just plain ordinary fun with a wicked and rebellious sense of humour, a glint in her eye and a little black cigar clamped in her teeth.’
While in Belgrade, Viggi was promoted to an FS3, one of only two women to reach this rank in the Immigration Foreign Service for many years. On return to Ottawa, she was not only head of the Africa and Middle East Immigration Operations Bureau but President of PAFSO from 1976 to 1977 — the first from M&I and — not a surprise to those who knew her capabilities — the first female President.
After serving as Canada’s Consul-General in Glasgow from 1980 to 1982, Viggi decided to retire, not in Denmark but in Ottawa where she enjoyed a wide range of friends and contacts. Inactivity was not in Viggi’s vocabulary — she launched into volunteer work for the Ski Marathon, Opera Lyra and was a frequent attendee at the NAC concerts. She was a founding member of the Canadian Immigration Historical Society, established in 1986 to commemorate and record Canada’s rich history of immigration. As CIHS President from 1989 to 1990, she presided over a symposium on the Hungarian revolution — an apt connection with her work in 1956.
For those who knew her, Viggi was representative of many sterling qualities — integrity, frankness, high standards, loyalty and strong principles, not to mention her ironic sense of humour and lively warmth and interest in all those with whom she came in contact. We will miss her greatly.
Carla Thorlakson Editor’s Note: Viggi died in Ottawa on June 18, 1994 at the age of 76. Her funeral service was held on June 30 at First Unitarian Congregation, followed by cremation in Ottawa and burial in Copenhagen.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 11, No. 3 (1994) — Fall 1994 // Automne 1994, pp. 28–29. Read the rest of this issue →
