Going a-viking

I'm one-fourth Norwegian, by way of my paternal grandfather.  It generally doesn't mean much.  My Norwegian genes merely add a hint of flavoring to my otherwise vanilla British ancestry.

But many of the kids I grew up with were still living their Scandinavian ancestry.  Little Norwegian flags adorned their houses.  Luther League meetings on Wednesday nights were compulsory for the kids.  Girls wore candles in their hair for Lucia celebrations.  Their families may even have eaten lutefisk in the privacy of their homes, but I can't swear to that.  (If so, they didn't brag about it.)

Following law school, I lived for nine years in Ballard, a once independent city of largely Scandinavian residents.  When it was annexed by Seattle in 1907, it was the second largest city in the county.  My living there had nothing to do with its Scandinavian flavor, but that flavor was certainly still discernible.  In recent years, with inward migration from other parts of the country, especially California, Ballard's Scandinavian roots have become somewhat attenuated, perhaps more an historical bragging point than a present day reality. 

Ballard high school, with students of every ethnicity, nevertheless proudly calls its teams the "Vikings."

Despite changing demographics, the neighborhood has been the site of the National Nordic Museum since 1980, a museum that moved into its new permanent building last year.  The museum is a major attraction in Ballard, but one I hadn't visited until today.

It was my friend Pat's suggestion that we meet at the museum this morning, to be followed by lunch.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the building is large and very impressive, its strong, clean lines suggestive of Scandinavian design.  The museum is dedicated to the history, culture, and economy of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and a number of small autonomous islands.  The history of Scandinavia, from its early occupation by the Sami peoples at the end of the last ice age to the present, is carefully explained and illustrated, stage by stage. 

Beginning with the nineteenth century, considerable space is given to immigration from each of the Scandinavian countries to America, especially to the Mid-West, centered around Minnesota, and later to the Pacific Northwest.  On display are fascinating exhibits of household goods and children's toys brought from the Old World, and of farming and other industrial equipment used and developed once in America.  While immigrants to the Mid-West tended to be farmers, those to the Northwest were most likely either loggers or fishermen.

Also on display are some beautiful, full-wall films showing the natural wonders of the Scandinavian countries.  These films both show why Scandinavian immigrants felt at home in the Pacific Northwest, and force us, their viewers, to wonder why we haven't spent more vacation time back in the "home country."

I was raised without any real sense of ethnic background -- it was stripped away somehow before I came along.  But the Nordic Museum illustrates why so many Scandinavian immigrants remain devoted to their ancestral home, why they keep -- as a Scandinavian-American in one of the films mentions -- one foot in America, but the other in Scandinavia. 

I walked out of the museum feeling a small prickling of pride in my apparently recessive one-fourth Norwegian genes, and the way Ballard continues to embody the Scandinavian immigrant exprience.

Pat and I then had curry for lunch at an Indian restaurant a block from the museum.