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.

I meant to illustrate this little report with my own vivid, dramatic photography, but I forgot it takes an indeterminate amount of time to upload from my phone to Dropbox to Photobucket. So I’ll post the pictures whenever that’s accomplished, unless the passage of time should render them obsolete.

I have now completed what should become (unless the Lord or the festival organizers block me) the most intense couple of weeks in my annual schedule. Norsk Høstfest in Minot and the Midwest Viking Festival in Green Bay, it appears, generally run on adjacent weeks, which means a 9-hour (either way) drive to North Dakota and a 5-hour (either way) drive to Wisconsin on consecutive weekends. Which is a challenge for a man of my, shall we say, experience and maturity. Yesterday I spent mostly in bed, and I actually slept a lot – something that I don’t do much these days unless I’m physically played out. Today I did some catching up – unloading my car (for the last time this season), washing clothes (not for the last time this season – pay no attention to the rumors), and catching up on email. And now I report to you.

First of all, the Midwest Viking Festival in Green Bay was kind of awesome. I was highly impressed. We used to do it in Moorhead, Minn. at the Hjemkomst Viking Ship Museum. That was also great, but we outwore our welcome somehow. This festival involved the most serious reenactors I’ve encountered (in this country) and was very well organized. It’s assembled around a replica Viking house in the grindhus style, built by my friend Owen Christianson and his wife Elspeth.

The weather was cool and windy, with some light rain on Friday, the first day. Saturday was colder but clear. This was actually pretty good weather for a Viking encampment. One of the chronic problems of Viking reenacting in this country is that we usually do it at summer festivals, where the woolen clothing appropriate to Northern European conditions gets rather uncomfortable. But wool was just the thing this weekend.

We had a large assembly of reenactors, mostly craftspeople of one kind or another, eager to show off their skills. The group Telge Glima, from Sweden, was there to demonstrate Viking athletic games twice a day, and their shows were followed by blunt steel combat by our fighters.

Because of the specialized nature of the event, our visitors seemed, by and large, really interested in the festival’s topic. That meant they were eager to buy books, and I sold off my stock of Viking Legacy early the first afternoon. Next year I’ll know to bring more.

I was particularly gratified to hear Viking Legacy referenced in conversation by someone who wasn’t even aware of my connection to it. And one woman who examined my novels said she’d just been looking at them on Amazon. That’s something I don’t think I’ve ever heard before from a potential customer.

So I was pleased with the whole thing. Next time, I think I’ll schedule a third night in a motel rather than driving home the same night. I made it safely, but it was probably an imprudent journey for a man of my experience and… well, you know.