Vesterheim Museum

at the 43rd annual Decorah Nordic Fest

Check here for a schedule of Vesterheim Nordic Fest events.

Celebrate Northern deLights at Decorah’s 43rd annual Nordic Fest and check out the new events and exhibitions at Vesterheim.

This year’s Nordic Fest honors the Sami, the native inhabitants of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Russian Kola Peninsula. The land of the Sami is covered in snow eight months of the year and their traditional livelihood is reindeer herding.

Have you ever wanted to meet a real reindeer? The Dancing Reindeer Herd from Milltown, Wisconsin, will be at Vesterheim with their friendly reindeer. The Dancing Reindeer Herd was established in 1985 and the herd is one of the largest in the lower 48 states of the United States. These reindeer have been in New York City’s Christmas pageant and in the 1994 movie Miracle on 34th Street. They will be in the Nordic Fest parade and in the museum’s Open Air Division for everyone to visit.

There will be many ways at Nordic Fest to learn more about the Sami. This year, Vesterheim and Upstart Crow’s original children’s theatre production will be Land of the Midnight Sun, an exploration of the Sami people and their way of life. The program is sponsored by Nick and Elida Rowley and Rowley Trial Law Firm.

Vesterheim will display images and objects of Sami culture from the museum collection in the exhibition, Sami, on the second floor of the museum’s Main Building.

Returning this year from Knox City, Missouri, is Sam Shoults and his Viking ship replica, sponsored by Viking State Bank & Trust, Decorah. The Viking longship called “Yrsa” is 27 feet long and six and a half feet wide. Shoults will tell visitors about his many adventures, including sailing Yrsa down the Mississippi River.

Vesterheim is pleased to welcome the group, “Skjaldborg,” from Elk Horn, Iowa, sponsored by Voltmer, Inc., Decorah, and Viking State Bank & Trust, Decorah. “Skjaldborg” is an old Norse word that means “fortress of shields.” Come and visit their full Viking camp in the museum’s Open Air Division to see how Vikings lived. They will entertain with full combat demonstrations.

Of course you won’t want to miss folk-art demonstrators from Norway and the United States; the Living Heritage Demonstrators partially sponsored by Sons of Norway Valdres Lodge #503 in Decorah; Ibsen theatre; the exhibitions “Knitting along the Viking Trail” and “Flashback: Norwegian Landscapes in Retrospect;” and special presentations!

Vesterheim Folk-Art Banquet during Nordic Fest
Please join us for the Folk-Art Banquet to be held Friday, July 24, 2009, at the Hotel Winneshiek in Decorah. There will be a social hour with a cash bar at 6:00 p.m., followed by a buffet dinner at 7:00 p.m. The cost is $25 per person. Everyone is welcome. Reservations for the banquet are due by July 17.

Check here for information about the Seventeenth Annual Vesterheim Rosemaling Raffle—a beautiful bowl, hand-turned by Paul Loftness of Gibbon, Minn., carved by Vesterheim Gold Medalist Becky Lusk of Coon Valley, Wis., and painted by Vesterheim Gold Medalist Jean Simonson Giese, of De Soto, Wis

To learn more about other aspects of the fest, call the “troll-free” hotline at 1-800-382-FEST, or check out the Nordic Fest website at www.nordicfest.com.