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Nina York: A Determined Dane

Although America purchased the former Danish West Indies more than 90 years ago, the flavor of Denmark flourishes on St. Croix thanks to the gentle tenacity of Nina York. A writer, translator and tour guide, she first came to the United States as a Danish Fulbright exchange student and, after living in Puerto Rico for 13 years, landed on St. Croix in 1976.

Early on, York became an enthusiastic volunteer for nonprofits like the St. Croix Environmental Association, Landmarks Society and St. George Village Botanical Garden, and a coordinator of numerous cultural exchanges through the Friends of Denmark Society and Rotary International. She began guiding Danish-speaking tour groups, a role that meshed well with her welcoming personality and lifelong love of learning.

"The participants are often people of great knowledge and fascinating to talk with, so I feel I learn from them as much as I am conveying to them," says York. "So many new friendships have come out of this tour guide experience."

To stimulate learning opportunities for local school kids, she revived an old custom from Danish times and created the Virgin Islands Children's Seal Fund in 1987. Selling stamp-like stickers with images by local artists for 12 years, she raised more than $100,000 for educational projects. She continues to chair the Mid-Isle Rotary Club's Scholarship Committee and witnesses the fruits of her labors.

"I have met so many gifted young people here that I want to see succeed," she says. "I think education is the key to success and self-realization."

After 1989's Hurricane Hugo inflicted major damage, there were no tour groups needing an escort for a time. York, a gifted writer in English as well as Danish, turned her talents to editing a visitor's magazine, a job she held for more than a dozen years. Her unflagging enthusiasm for all things St. Croix popped from the pink pages and helped stimulate island tourism when optimism was needed.

Until recently, few adults, and certainly no school children on St. Croix, had heard of Danish impressionist Hugo Larsen, who came to the Danish West Indies in 1904 to paint islanders at work in sugar factories and at play in rum shops. After helping translate a book about the artist, York realized that the cost of bringing the original sketches and oils across the sea to St. Croix would be prohibitive. So she conjured up the idea of a documentary video that could be shown in schools, wrote a funding proposal to the Virgin Islands Humanities Council and persisted in getting a $10,000 grant approved.

"To find such amazing support and cooperation from so many sides was particularly gratifying," she says of her Hugo Larsen documentary that became a reality in 2008. It's just the latest in a long series of projects this determined Dane has undertaken to communicate her love of learning and of St. Croix's Danish heritage.