The Midwest Viking Festival in Green Bay is, once again, history (in two senses). I made the four-hour-plus drive to and from without incident, and had an excellent time.
I shared a motel room with the experimental archaeologist who oversaw the construction of the Viking House, on the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay campus, that is the centerpiece of the encampment. His name is Owen Christianson and he is a physicist (I really didn’t understand his descriptions of his work, but it has something to do with electromagnetics) by day. He’s also a recognized folk artist, and I once took his class in making wooden stave vessels. He was by himself this year because his wife was unable to come along. I was somewhat daunted by his credentials at first, but we actually found a lot to talk about, and parted good friends.
The festival itself runs Friday and Saturday. Friday is a day for school groups; it went okay, but was rather quiet. I feared we were losing public enthusiasm. But Saturday, as it was last year, was a madhouse, and people bought up nearly my whole stock of Viking Legacy (I’d brought extra this year) along with a fair quantity of my novels. I was in no wise disappointed.
As is more and more the case these days, the hard part for me was setting up, tearing down, and packing the car. I’m getting too old for this stuff, I fear, but I expect to keep at it for a while. I’m too proud to hang it up, I imagine, until I actually hurt myself. (Much thanks to Andy and Missy, especially, for helping me tote that barge and lift that bale.)
We got handsome coverage from a local TV station, and I was fortunate enough to get a lot of the air time. I’m the devilishly handsome man in the blue tunic, in case you were wondering.
