Iceland’s new Canadian-born First Lady says she hopes her position will help strengthen ties between her adopted nation and her country of birth.

But Eliza Reid suggests that won’t be difficult, because her neighbours of the tiny island nation (pop. 323,000) already admire Canadians.

“The stereotype is that we’re down-to-earth, open, regular people,” Reid told CTV News Channel Sunday.

“Obviously we’re northern countries where nature plays a strong role,” added the 40-year-old writer and editor, who grew up in Ashton, Ont., just outside Ottawa.

Canadians are also excited about the prospect of a Canadian-born Icelandic First Lady -- at least in Reid’s hometown of Ashton, Ont. (pop. 200).

“We have someone really famous now,” said Mary Campbell, a neighbour in the town just outside Ottawa. “Holy jumping! From the little town of Ashton.”

Gudni Johannesson, Reid’s history-professor husband, was elected to the mostly-ceremonial presidency on a platform of “openness and bipartisanship,” following a political scandal.

“It’s all really about turning over a new leaf, starting afresh,” Reid said.

Johannesson takes over from Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, whose foreign-born wife may have cost him the presidency.

Grímsson did not seek re-election after nearly 20 years in office, after it was revealed in the Panama Papers leak that his wife, Dorrit Moussaieff, owned an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands.

Reid said she believes her husband will be a “unifying figure” and that there is now “an optimistic spirit” in Iceland.

The couple met on a blind date at Oxford University in the late 1990s. They have four young children.