Rash: Celebrating Minnesota’s rich heritage, 200 years after Norwegians first docked in the U.S.

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Two hundred years ago this month, a Norwegian vessel docked in New York, beginning an extraordinary exodus of up to a third of Norway’s population over the next century, creating a diaspora that profoundly affected Norway and America — especially Minnesota.

The craft set sail from Stavanger with 52 people. It arrived with 53. The newborn and the other new Americans, as well as the many émigrés who followed, came “looking for farmland, looking for religious freedom and, of course, a better future,” Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon said at the State Capitol after meeting with Gov. Tim Walz during a trip to the region last week.

The crown prince’s itinerary included several other stops, including Norway House in Minneapolis, where he cut a ribbon at the new Saga Center, which touts “an interactive exhibit utilizing cutting-edge technology for families of all ages to explore connections to Norway.”

Such connections are “foundational to who we are as Minnesotans,” said Walz. “We are incredibly proud of that heritage.”

For his part, the crown prince said, “it makes me proud to see how [Minnesotans with Norwegian heritage] take care of their culture and their history, and I think that it’s something that we can build upon.”

In many ways, the Upper Midwest seemed suited for Norwegians, said Benjamin Bigelow, director of undergraduate studies at the University of Minnesota’s department of German, Nordic, Slavic and Dutch. “It replicated some of those conditions of Scandinavia” — including the sparse population and the cold.

But while it’s often thought that the many Scandinavians — Norwegians, especially — who settled in Minnesota did so because the landscape looked familiar, Sackrison said that land availability, not similarity, disproportionally drove immigration to Minnesota and the Dakotas. Some traditional trades like farming, fishing and logging were similar, she said, but the agricultural scale “was just so different.”

This scale offered opportunity — but also isolation, which was one of the themes of “Giants in the Earth,” a landmark novel of the Norwegian-immigrant experience that is marking its own centennial. First published in Norwegian, the English version, which was once required reading for some Minnesota students, came out two years later.

Written by St. Olaf’s Ole Edvart Rølvaag, himself a Norwegian immigrant, the book made a splash on both sides of the Atlantic as “a very different perspective on the rosier picture that some imagine of the immigrant experience,” said Sackrison.

The novel “was incredibly impactful” for Norwegians and especially Americans, she said, adding that while the reception seemed assured in Norway, it was uncertain if somehow its resonance would be lost in translation.

In Scandinavia, the era of moving “away from the countryside gets felt like almost a trauma, like something being lost,” Bigelow said, adding that then “the cultural response is to become fixated on rural folk culture.”

And in America, said Sackrison, “the way we see Norwegian American history and Norwegian American culture in the U.S. is reflective of the 19th century and not the modern moment.”

While honoring that past, Haakon and Walz also pointed to the present, with each emphasizing the kind of tight ties in high-tech business that were the focus of the “USA-Norway Business Summit: Celebrating our Past and Connecting for the Future” event at Norway House.

“We are committed as we go forward,” said Walz, “whether it is around trade, or defense, or honoring our cultural heritage — it is critically important not just in Minnesota and Norway, it’s critical to the rest of the world to see how these relationships matter.”

Haakon noted close cooperation on business as well as defense; previewing his meeting with Minnesota National Guard leaders, he made special mention of the decades of coordination between the National Guard and the Norwegian Home Guard.

Reflecting on the landmark anniversary, Haakon said that “bonds between nations are bonds between people, and that is very deeply rooted because of that shared history. So it’s something that’s important to us, and I think it’s important to those with Norwegian heritage here.”