On Sunday morning we didn’t have to meet until 10:30, which was a gift more precious than gold to my battered body. It was also Sunday morning that I stopped at Walgreens and, bowing at last to the inevitable, purchased a cane. I’ve been having trouble with my left knee for about a week (I saw my doctor today, and she says it’s arthritis, possibly treatable with anti-inflammatories). The morning’s rest helped the leg, and also, incidentally, with another problem I had, that of of lack of sleep.

We met at the Norwegian Memorial Church in Chicago (Minnekirken). It was a gorgeous fall morning, and I wish I’d thought to take a picture of the building. The service consisted of a Norwegian liturgy and hymns, with the sermon in English. You know how I feel about mainline Lutheranism, but I found nothing whatever in the service to offend even my hypersensitivity. It was delightful to go through the readings and responses in Norwegian, and to sing the Norwegian hymns (most of which were unfamiliar). All in all, it was the most fun I’ve had in church in years.

Then onto a bus for the ride to Geneva, Illinois, a prosperous, largely Swedish-American community that has been broadminded enough to provide a home for an important Norwegian-American historical artifact.

This is the makeshift structure in which the ship is currently housed. She really needs a controlled museum environment, but this is an improvement over the criminal neglect with which it’s been treated in the past.

Here’s “The Viking” herself. An almost-exact copy of the Gokstad Ship, visible in the Viking Ships Museum in Oslo today. The 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago was a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America. Spain sent replicas of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. But the fair officials also invited Norway to send the original Gokstad Ship as an exhibit. This was out of question due to the extreme fragility of the reconstructed original. But Captain Magnus Anderson, a Norwegian newspaper owner, decided Norway should build a replica and sail it (not tow it, as Spain did with their replicas) to America. The trip was actually accomplished with such unexpected speed that it took about half the planned time. The hard part was getting it towed safely through the Great Lakes and their canals.

Replica Viking ships are commonplace today, but this was the first time it was ever tried. Someone in a Norwegian newspaper called Captain Anderson a murderer, since he was surely sending 11 good sailors to a watery grave.

After more than a century, most of which the ship spent moldering in Lincoln Park, Chicago, a small group of volunteers (spearheaded by my friend Lorraine Straw) is trying to conserve it and find it a new home. Here you can see some of the stabilizing cables currently being used to repair the alignment of the keel:

During the bus ride I had the opportunity to chat a bit with Steven Harding, the English geneticist, and with Prof. Torgrim Titlestad, both of whom were “helt genialt,” as the Norwegians say.

Then I drove home, far into the night. This was the sort of thing I used to do when I was young, but haven’t tried much recently. I drank diet cola to keep alert, and listened to talk radio on a series of stations. I’d forgotten the pleasure of driving on an almost-deserted highway (a delightful change from Chicago, where Interstate 90 is crowded even on Sundays). Got in at 2:30 a.m., and slept long into the morning (I’d been wise enough to take today as another vacation day).

And here I am. It was a trip full of challenges and pleasures. I’m rather proud of myself for coming through with only a slight limp.

If you’re interested in helping to save the Viking Ship, here’s their web site.