Because many of you out there aren’t fortunate enough to share in the riches of Scandinavian culture, I offer the following information out of a profound sense of civic responsibility.

Also because if I didn’t report on my week, I’d have to think of something substantive to write.

On the way out I had the pleasure, once again, of having lunch with Roy Jacobsen of Dispatches From Outland and Writing, Clear and Simple, in Fargo. And on the way home Dale Nelson, who teaches English and Mayville State University, and his wife Dorothea and daughter Lynnea, hosted me for lunch and dinner. Thanks to all of them.

Norsk Høstfest in Minot, North Dakota is the largest Scandinavian festival in the United States. People come from all over the country, and indeed from all over the world. The reason for the location is obvious. It’s a central location. Minot is so far from anywhere that it’s just as remote from Minnesota as it is from Scandinavia. Or at least it seems that way.

It was uncharacteristically hot this year. Høstfest is traditionally a chilly event (the name means “Autumn Festival), and I brought mostly my winter tunics. I did bring one summer linen tunic, and I ended up wearing that two days. It probably smelled, but not as badly as my undertunic would have smelled if I’d worn it under a wool tunic one more day. Live steel combats in particular provided an excellent opportunity for honoring Finnish culture through being my own sauna.

Members of our group participate in a program that brings festival exhibitors and entertainers (not the big entertainers, but the little ones like us. We Vikings are technically classified as entertainers, not exhibitors) into the local schools. A small group of students enroll in a specific “Vikings” educational program where they do Viking crafts and (supposedly) learn stuff. Here are some of them in our camp. They’re the ones in the white tunics.

Here you see my mortal enemy Ragnar and a fellow named Dylan (a fine old Viking name meaning “One who sings through his nose”) talking to a young Viking fan. I don’t know what they’re saying, but it’s always a good bet that Ragnar is explaining that Vikings didn’t wear horns on their helmets—“Not now, not ever!”

Here you see Ron talking to an older visitor. In the background you see “The Evening Wolf,” one of our Viking boats.

Here Ragnar and I engage in a duel to the death. My record this year didn’t equal last year’s, largely because we had a nicer surface to fight on. I excel in fighting on sand (“Beach Holmgang,” soon to be an Olympic event), while Ragnar does better on proper dirt, which doesn’t aggravate his arthritis so badly. Most of our fights were actually draws (which means “mutual kills”), but Ragnar won several. I won (I think) one.

This is how our shields looked at the end of the festival.

Sissel wasn’t there this year (Daniel O’Donnell filled that space), so I didn’t go to any concerts. We did, however, once again get to hear two Oak Ridge Boys concerts each day, just around the corner.

What could be more Scandinavian than that?