Enjoy a free, guided “Twilight Tour of the Open Air Division” at 6:30 p.m. Bring a date, bring your parents, or come out on your own. A visit to the picturesque museum grounds is a wonderful summer evening activity in Decorah. Vesterheim’s Open Air Division includes 12 buildings with diverse histories. The Egge-Koren House was the home of Decorah-area farmers Erik and Helen Egge where the first Lutheran pastor in Decorah, Rev. U. Vilhelm Koren and his wife Elisabeth, stayed until a parsonage was built for them. The Painter-Bernatz Mill is on its original site where it was built in 1851 and the Valdres House was brought all the way from Heggenes, Øystre Slidre, Norway. Other tours offered at the museum on June 6 include the Museum’s Main Building at 10:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. and an Open Air Division tour at 1:30 p.m.

Celebrate U. S. Independence Day with a visit to Vesterheim! The film The Letters From America will show throughout the day in the lobby of the museum's Main Building.

This documentary film by Svekon Film in Bergen, Norway, was screened at the Filmfestival in Grimstad 2011, Bergen International Film Festival 2011, and Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival 2012. It tells the story of Norwegian immigrants to America in the period from 1825-1900 through letters they sent home to Norway. For more than a hundred years the letters from America built a bridge of thoughts, faith, and hope across the Atlantic. At the start of 1800 the population in Norway counted 800,000. During the next hundred years close to 900,000 people left the country for the New World. Almost every Norwegian has a relative who at one time emigrated to America, and the ties are still strong between the two countries.

This is your chance to tour Vesterheim’s amazing storage facilities, where the majority of the collections are housed. An upcoming exhibition called Favorite Things is being planned 2014, and the curators want input from visitors. As part of this special event, we invite all visitors to tell us your favorite Vesterheim artifacts!

Activity to be announced.

Activity to be announced.

We will welcome winter and look forward to skiing with presenter Glenn Borreson, who will give a talk, From Telemark to Tamarack: Ski Jumping in Western Wisconsin, at 1:30 p.m. in the Gathering Room of the Amdal-Odland Heritage Center. We’ll also hold a ski-themed “Bonus Barnetimen” at 10 a.m., featuring Jan Brett’s book, Trouble With Trolls.

Author Kathleen Ernst will present a special activity connected to her popular “Chloe Ellefsen” mystey series. If you haven’t heard, the fourth book in the series, due out later this year, is set at Vesterheim! More details about this event will be announced later.