Norwegian American (English subtitles)
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- Merch: northern-histo...
Updates: / thenorthernhistorychannel
In a documentary about the Norwegian Americans, we follow Lars and Hartvig on a roadtrip though the American midwest, in search of Norwegian heritage.
Directed, filmed, edited and produced by Lars Harald Gathe.
Produced by Nils Hartvig Johannson.
Animations by Nanouche Oriano.
With many thanks to Sverre Mørkhagen and all the norwegian americans incl. Sons of Norway and Torskeklubben.
#history #scandinavia #norway
Thank you so much for watching! I really enjoy reading all your stories about family or relations, so keep them coming. And hit subscribe if you enjoy history films.
Veldig bra!
It’s incredible for a Norwegian to watch this. We actually have a little colony in America
In the Midwest we really cherish what Norwegian traditions we have. Even if it is just something simple like making Lefse. I’m hoping that the future generations carry on that same value of culture, but it’s something that is becoming less important to people nowadays. One of my favorite Scandinavian places is a stave church on Washington Island in Wisconsin. The Norsk stuff is kinda in the background, but it’s really rewarding to seek out and learn more about
Sjekk Oleanna.. Olaf Bull's lille prosjekt 😉 New Norway kolonien planlagt i Pennsylvania..gikk ikke helt etter planen.. Sitter i Sigdal, (på Prestfoss).. litt rart å se banneret i starten der 🙄😁
@@nickswisher6759 Thats so cool to hear that some Americans eat Lefsa! Didn't know that food traditions remained.
lul your little cute colony. Search for Sweden Hills in Japan.
Apparently there are more Norwegian-Americans in the US than Norwegians in Norway. Nice docu!
my wife is Norwegian and was impressed with the older gentelman's accent and was able to recognize his family came from the north and aside from a little stumble was actually spot on.
He definitely weren’t from the north
Denne dokumentaren er svært bra! Lærte mye om Norsk-Amerikanere jeg ikke visste
takk!
I live in Oregon and they have a Scandinavian festival in Junction City in the summer. near where I live. I am not Norwegian, but German and enjoy the Oktoberfest in Mt. Angel. We lived in a farmhouse built by a Norwegian in 1921, that looked like homes in Norway when we visited Bergen, painted red with white trim, 30 years ago. Its so important to keep our heritage and traditions and to learn the language and visit the home countries, because it enriches our lives and educates us where we came from!!! And where we are headed
A room full of americans singing the Norwegian national anthem just feels hella weird
enig
@Arne Nilsen is Japan old fashioned to you?
@@jeppepedersen7006 my family came to America just before 1900 and we know nothing of our culture. it was lost right away and now my family is desperately trying to find those roots. dont say it feels weird, we're still norwegian-american
@Arne Nilsen multiculturalism is cancer, but Norwegian Americans tending to their roots is wholesome :-)
@@TheGhostHAG If your genetic heritage has been diluted for that amount of time, you’re not really Norwegian anymore. Just stating scientific facts.
I am fully Mexican, but according to my DNA test results, for some reason I have 3% Norwegian in me. 🤔
A Norwegian sailor;) Norway was a big shipping nation back in time, with ships going all over the world
We have a lot of different European nations in our DNA, but I was surprised when my youngest sister said that she was told she had a small amount of Spanish DNA by 23 and Me. I know of no Spanish ancestors and we are in Canada so how likely is it that we have a Spanish ancestor in some line or other. My mother passed away at nearly 96 in 2019. If she were still alive, I guess we could send off her DNA to see if she has a Spanish background. She is part American so I suppose it is possible that she carried some Spanish DNA for some reason.
@@dinkster1729 We are very mixed.
My paternal 2nd great-grandmother’s maiden name was Christianson (or sen).
Really good documentary
My dads biological parents came here from a ship in 1944 his mom was Swedish his dad was norwiegian. They gave him up for adoption in Minnesota.the adoption agency was givin
I live in Wisconsin in America and my daughter and her family live in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
My son-in-law is 100% Norwegian. I am 24% Scandinavian and 76% Russian. My Grandma came from Russia when she was 14 years old and settled in Northern Wisconsin. She and Grandpa owned a farm in WI.
Han unge karen som snakker litt før og etter 25:00 har veldig god uttale, spesielt til å være engelsktalende (de slakter vanligvis uttale i andre språk). Eneste problemet er at han bytter uttale hele tiden. Hørte alt mulig av aksenter der, svensk, østnorsk, trønders, vestlandsk og finnmark, blir nesten forvirret av å høre på, litt som noen som har bodd på kryss og tvers av landet 😂
En kan jo også forestille seg at dette er ganske vanlig for en som skal lære norsk på avstand. Det er litt som en nordmann som har lært engelsk vd å se litt på TV fra USA, østkysten, California og sørstatene og britisk TV og blander sjargongen og aksenter likeså. Det er tilgivelig :)
Vel, hvordan høres du ut på engelsk?😅🤷
@@91YEHNAH Så god som skole systemet her er på å introdusere engelsk til oss og så blir forsterket av filmer, musikk og spill i tillegg til at vi ofte er nødt til å snakke engelsk i utlandet, og avhengig av jobben din - dagligdags, vil jeg si at de fleste sin engelsk uttale ikke er dårlig eller ødelagt som man kan forvente fra et folkeslag som stor sett kun snakker et språk
@@olehenriknor Eh... 'et folkeslag'?😅 Går det an å bli mer kunnslapsløs?🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@91YEHNAH Siden du virker usikker hva det betyr "Et folkeslag, folkegruppe eller et folk er en gruppe mennesker som vanligvis deler språk, kultur og som oftest genetisk opphav." altså i denne sammenheng Amerikanere. Og rolig med å kalle folk kunnskapsløs samtidig som du ikke klarer å rettskrive det, satan det er god ironi. Men hva var feil utsagnet mitt? Vi blir eksponert til engelsk media hver dag som hjelper oss å snakke og skrive engelsk bedre, det blir ikke de av norsk media.
Interesting how different people came to America for completely different reasons. I think Norwegians aren't completely alone, in that they came like most european immigrants - seeking a better life and escaping poverty and a lack of space and opportunity, without any serious intention of ever returning. And then there are, for example, Russians, which was a completely different, almost opposite story. The vast majority came in the 20th century, not seeking opportunity but rather escaping communist persecution Their outlook was quite different - they had, at least in theory, every intention to some day return to their vast nation to rebuild it once communist falls. How it did or didn't happen in reality is a whole other story, probably with not yet a conclusive ending. That being said, there were also a few that came during Imperial times for somewhat similar reasons as the europeans - they were the poorer peasants seeking, not so much long term opportunity, as a chance to make a quick fortune and eventually return to their families back home, sometimes sending them aid in the meantime, however they mostly went not to frontier farmland but to work in the mines of Pennsylvania. Like Norwegians, these people also worked hard to preserve their heritage, but that's pretty much where the similarities end. At any rate, i never knew that there was such a community of Norwegians in the US. Very interesting. Everyone knows about the Italians, the Polish, the Irish immigrants and some of their cultural life in the US, but i'd never known about this Norwegian enclave in the midwest and that they were so intense in the preservation of their heritage. Hmm, a well kept secret. Somehow I don't think of Scandinavians as being particularly nationalistic and resisting assimilation in America since they generally share the same protestant faith as most Americans. But I see this wasn't quite an accurate assumption at all.
Jim Morrison @ 28.10 :D
My great great grandpa was ole western. He came from Oslo. I still have family over in Norway. Willkommen!!!
Velkommen** din sopp
I am from Norway and this was honestly so touching to watch. I didn’t know that there are so many Norwegian Americans that still hold on to their ancestors’ traditions. Sadly, Norway today is not what they might think, many traditions are probably only existing in the US. And I have to say I was blown away by the Norwegian accent of that nice Tobacco farmer. Norwegian is a weird language to that extent that you need to speak a certain dialect in order to sound fluent. If not, Norwegians will immediately hear that one is not a native. The tobacco farmer nailed that! Awesome documentary. Lots of love from Norway🇳🇴
It's something like the French spoken in Quebec today. It resembles the French spoken around the time they immigrated, still retains a lot of older French words and different from modern day French.
@@z1az285 I have read that English and Spanish in North America also retain older words and forms that subsequently changed in their modern European versions.
@@JonathanHerz Yes, that too. I've heard it from others here. I found out that "bub" for example is an old English word as is "bay window". No experience with Spanish, but makes sense too. Someone from Florida would know better.
@@JonathanHerz The accent in North American English is the older English accent. The U.K. accents are newer.
We are here and we drink Aquavit.
I love how the old guy five minutes into the video says they're 7 different groups from various parts of Norway, then proceeds to exclusively list places from Østlandet...
@ಠ_ಠ I don’t believe you.
@ಠ_ಠ Right.
@ಠ_ಠ True that, I'm also from Bergen. I think it's because Bergen was/is a coastal city with lots of interaction with people coming from abroad, so our culture is somewhat different than from those who are from the eastern parts of the country etc.
Yeah, norway is a country that have more than what is , east in the country...
And Bergen isnt all there is in west eiter....
I know Norway isnt big, but reading comments,and watching this video, makes Norway come off even smaller!
I love Norway . And i have lived in various places in Norway , a lot of them , actually 😁✌
That is how the lags are organized. My family came from Ringerike, so I joined that one. (I had to produce birth certificates from the church in Norderhov to join - they take this stuff seriously). We are grouped like that as well, but only with nearby regions. Drammen, Hole, Lier, Modum, etc. He should not really say all over Norway. Just the old counties like Buskerud.
Han eldre mannen fra Westby hadde en herlig dialekt!
Absolutt!
Hørtes veldig ut som en ekte, gammeldags totning!
*The old man from Westby had (unknown) dialect.*
I don’t speak Norwegian by this is what I see.
@@strxkereye 'lovely' :)
@@strxkereye Yea, the older man from Westby has a lovely dialect :) (sometimes we write past tense while still referring to something that still exist - hence "has".. or at least I do, in my dialect. Lol) Good guess!
12:58 "årre heite, for ei kveite"
That made me smile, if his ancestors are not from sunnmøre i dont know what haha
Norway actually has a large, prosperous colony in the United States. It is called Minnesota. I was born there and our families still speak with a Norwegian lilt. My family emigrated from Lillehammer in 1870 and opened a department store in the Twin Cities area. I still have my great grandmother’s Bible printed in Christiana. Like many Norwegians my family spoke English fluently so they had an easy adjustment in the United States. I have traveled in Norway and feel very much at home there.
Lets do Minnesota norwegian… from A to Å
As a percentage of original settlement when the land was stolen from native Americans, the state of North Dakota is more Norwegian than Minnesota
There are a lot of norskies and swedes and Finnish Americans in Minnesota to be sure, but there were more than equal numbers of anglos and Germans. Plus some Czechs and Irish and a few Italians etc, somewhat later Latinos, FBAs, Somalis, hmong, etc
A few years ago we cleared out my grandfathers attic here in Norway and found dozens of american newspapers written in norwegian from ca 1900. His relativves in America would write and send papers back home.
@Marshmallow Man We know some, they've visited periodically over the years. Really nice people
Did you turn the papers over to an archive or library? They might be the only copies of that newspaper that survived. Perhaps, your grandfather's relatives were mentioned in those newspaper. That's why they were sent back to Norway maybe or had he spent time in the U.S. and would know some of the people mentioned in the newspaper?
I can relate to the thing about them not talking about Norway. My dad's uncle migrated to the USA after participating in WW2 in the 1940s. My grandma never heard anything from her brother at all until she got the news of his death 30 years later. When I tried to ask her about relatives in the US, she just went blank and didn't wanna say anything. So I guess it was painful for them.
Yea same for me when I asked about my grandmother
perhaps he had served with the Germans so the family was afraid to talk about him?
The tobacco farmer got a lovley understandeble norwegian dialect :))
Thanks for publishing this documentary! I am preparing a presentation on American Norwegian and I've learned so much from your film. Thank you and greetings from Germany!
Thank you!
hey I'm from Norway and I'm learning german
Holy moly it's astoninishing hearing the tobacco farmer. Doesen't have the stereotypical american accent at all from Norwegian/americans, in fact he has a very specific rural dialect.
The guy from Decorah was struggling a bit more, but also had a pretty distinct Northern-norwegian dialect
The Lutheran Church my family attended when i was in high school (the 1960's) had been started by Norwegians. We had bi-lingual services until the 1950's ....and i remember singing Norwegian Christmas songs. Free Norwegian language lessons were offered----and this was in Los Angeles, California. A long way from Minnesota!
I'm in Kingston, Ontario and I am of part Norwegian American descent. My mother married my father in 1948 and they moved to Ontario. I spent years in northern Ontario as a child and, then, we moved to southern Ontario. I lived in Newfoundland for most of the 1970s and, then, moved back to Kingston. I met my husband and married and had 2 children who are now grown. People do move around.
Thank you very much for this documentary!As a Chinese American I always look up to Norwegian history. I want to live in one of the Scandinavian settlements in my future!
You Are more than welcome
Clayton's norwegian gave me whiplash. It was like listening to my grandmother from rural Hedmark
Was he born in Norway? His Norwegian was really, really good.
@@aregranhaug8617 Probably not. My grandfather was a second generation American (family is from Hurdal in Akershus) and English was his second language. His diction when speaking norsk was just the same as Clayton.
I was born & raised in NYC, but all of my family are Swedes & Norwegians in Minnesota. I was lucky enough to be taught Swedish as a young child, & I will definitely be teaching it to my children when I have some. We need to keep Scandinavian heritage alive in the US!
Wow
Toppen
Excellent documentary! I live in Oslo, Indian expat and very much enjoyed watching this. Was able to understand most things now that I know Norwegian geopolitical and demographic details. Kudos! Venlig Hilsen! :)
det er så vakre da. jeg er norsk-australianer, og jeg er så glad i hjemlandet- vi har ikke masse nordfolk (henry lawson var halv-norsk, og det finnes svenskekyrker, men det er ikke et samfunn eller bygder liksom i minnesota). Denne videoen er veldig hyggelig og jeg er spent til å se på den igjen når jeg er eldre. :33333
hvor har du lært norsk fra? imponerende hvis du er født og oppvokst i Australia :)
Du skriver godt norsk :)
Love the old man in Westby, he really warmed up to his Norwegian. Would have loved to hear more of his stories! I´m Norwegian, and would love to do the same roadtrip after this pandemic. How interesting. 💕
Anybody who owned a farm of 160 acres of in Norway in the 1800's where at the top of the Norwegian society. Having that much land would be something equivalent to a Lord or Duke in Britain. Maybe a little exaggeration, but imagine the idea of getting to be a "King" for the price of a boat ticket and five bucks.
jeg er Norskamerikansk og jeg er fra Minnesota.
Hilsen fra Oslo 👍😊
Enda en hilsen fra Oslo!
... Eller. Rett sør for Oslo.
Hilsen fra Stavanger!
Fra Skien her, men har veldig lyst til å flytte til USA en dag haha
Me too 😂
It's great to read all of these positive comments from Norwegians living in Norway about their American cousins. Sadly as a German (Pennsylvanian Dutch) American it is not the same with us. If I use any Pennsylvania Dutch with Germans they say that we do not speak correctly even though it is the same language we have been speaking for over 300 years. There is no familiarity between American Germans and Germans living in Germany.
I also find it heartwarming!
When my great grandfather came, he came through Canada and over lake Erie on a ship called the Atlantic. It sank, and over 200 Norwegian souls were lost. He made it though. Had a very rough time. But he kept on, and settled in neilsville, mn.
The many stories we had of the Norwegian immigrants to America is that they had incredibly rough journeys getting there (and sometimes back again), and they were very poor. They had to endure so much before they could eventually enjoy any prosperity.
@@NorthernHistory I wish I knew more about my ancestors history. The one anecdote I do have is about my ancestor, Jorgen Marsett, a railroad worker, who was killed when a bucket fell on his head in a well. Im hoping more people try to connect back to their ancestries in the future here in America. People forget that their ancestors were immigrants once, and had to work hard to get us where we are.
I have family members on that ship aswell! a family of 4 and they all miraculously survived. They moved back to Norway later on. Im a bit flabbergasted seeing this story here after hearing it from my own grandfather.
@@1gakus how wonderful and strange that two strangers would be connected in such a way! If you'd like to read my ggfather's account of the wreck, here is a link. He calls four Norwegian miles, 28 English miles lol!
www.norwayheritage.com/articles/templates/norwegian_settl.asp?articleid=32&zoneid=17
That is such a shame!
Nice documentary, but if you really want to experience it you should come! 😀
And all the strange food you heard about is still around. From the time of hardship, no nourishment. Bad harvestsand so on. We still have those things, more as a cultural thing. Especially the sheeps head dish! It is not a common thing, but its still there! 😲
Norwegian people really starved in those times, and deep down we never forgot it.
We are one of the « richest»nations now, but the hardships is still in our souls.
The hardship is definitely not in your souls. I love Norway, don't get me wrong but you guys are spoilt by dagpenger, NAV, high wages due to protectionist policy and the oil fund, etc. And this really shows in the bruk og kast culture, the ridiculous consumerism that has gripped seemingly everyone, the frequent flying... Not to mention that amount of pollution that this (and the hydrocarbon exportation - please don't give me that "we don't pollute much, we use hydroelectricity" nonsense) releases. I've lived and worked in a few countries, including Norway and the US. Norway is very much like the US, just with an enormous, comprehensive social safety net. Life is incredibly easy here. It shows.
@@BIGAPEGANGLEADER that has nothing to do witg her comment you douce
Douche***
Yeah, i tried sheep head at the ‘’folkehøgskole’’ in Voss. Very interesting to say the least, but definetly not for everyone. ;)
@@ostekakeutenost1308 thanks!
Doesn't every Norwegian linage have distant relatives in Minnesota?(Joking kinda..)😛🤔😁
My grandmother moved to Canada before the world war two...🇧🇻🇨🇦
800 000 to 900 000 emigrate to usa in 1850 to 1900 ish, by a population of about 2 million in Norway, so yes, u r very right.. I have reltives in minnesota
No. My grandparents emigrated to New York where my grandfather used his woodworking skills working at Steinway pianos along with his brother.
genetically all europeans and thus all emericans are distant relatives
@@hagalathekido Well, no one is more than 22nd cousins to anyone. We all came from Africa, as far as we know.
I am neither Norwegian or American, but I find this documentary really great and informative. I rarely get to learn the stories of the European settlers that came to America in the 19th century. I am German, so I can imagine that Germans in this time went through very similar experiences. Cultural preservation in the US is such a special thing. Anyone who says Americans have no culture is talking out of their ass. THIS is American culture.
Thank you for your insight. I couldn't agree more. Culture exists everywhere humans go.
Takk for den jobben som ble gjort med den filmen her. VIktig å dokumentere og ta vare på
Great documentary. I came over to Galesville, Wisconsin back in 1982 and stayed there for 4 months. Back then there was still a lot of older people speaking fluent norwegian because thats what they spoke at home until they started school.
.
Thank you! Yes, we heard a lot of stories from the generation up and coming in the 80s talking about their grandparents who spoke norwegian at home.
@@NorthernHistory I asked my mother if she ever heard Norwegian spoken at home. She said no, though she was constantly dropping Norwegian words when I was growing up. Both her parents were Norwegian immigrant farmers who settled in Western New York. Mom was born in 1921 and died in 2011.
@@NorthernHistory Oh, yes, my Grandmother born in 1898 in Iowa told me her father the only child of her grandparents born in Norway would only speak to his children in Norwegian, never in English. She spoke Norwegian once to recent Norwegian immigrants to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, but they couldn't understand her. Perhaps, she spoke a different dialect?
@@spiritmatter1553My mother told me her parents refused to speak to her brother and her in anything other than English even though my Grandmother spoke German, English and Norwegian and my Grandfather spoke German and English. My Grandfather's grandfather had come to the Berlin, Ontario area (now called Kitchener in the 1830s at 10 years of age from Germany. My Grandparents spoke German to each other when they didn't want their 2 children to understand what they were talking about. My Grandmother had learned German because she worked for a German-speaking farm family for several years. My mother was born in 1923 in Spokane, Washington, but returned to Alberta where her father farmed and her brother was born in Alberta in 1926. Only speaking English is s all part of that "Be an American and speak English" movement that the Norwegian expert on Norwegian Americans talks about. I don't think my mother knew a word of Norwegian. I did inherit as the eldest child of the eldest child of the eldest surviving child of my great-grandfather Bakken his individual communion cup which is supposed to have come with him from Norway. He took his first communion in that cup apparently in the 1870s. However, individual communion cups were a Norwegian custom, but were not adopted until the 1890s. So I'm not sure if my Great-Grandfather made his first communion later than the 1870s or if individual communion cups were given out to remember a person's first communion and, then, became the custom in the 1890s for members of the congregation to keep using individual communion cups to stop the spread of germs or what?
@@dinkster1729 She probably did or kept a lot of the old vocabulary. We noticed that a lot of words used by the older generations felt like listening to someone from the early 1900s when we interviewed them.
The town I live in has the viking cafe!!!!
It always surprises me how many Scotch Irish English German and Dutch and Norwegian and European anvestrrys there are here in America that hold on to the older traditions that most Europeans who are family have forgotten and have forgotten that we are only slightly different than them yet alot different in other ways. We are more of a European melting pot of ancestery than anywhere
Fantastisk dokumentar !
Takk!
It is impressive and also touching that Americans of norwegian decent hold on to Norwegian traditions. Like Matt Groening who made a Simpsons episode about Norway years ago, and all these nice American-norwegians celebrating their Norwegian roots. I wish you all a happy new 2024. May God bless you all. With love from Norway 🇧🇻🇺🇲
Thank you very much for posting this! I am a mixed European American but I am mostly Norwegian. I know the names back to well before they left thanks to the Lutheran church records. My great grandmothers Reinertson and Iverson both spoke some Norwegian still and cooked Norwegian food. They both passed before I was an adult and did not get to learn what they thought it meant to be Norwegian American. My mother learned to make lefse from them but not much else has been passed down. It is good to be able to research culture and fit it into my story.
Lefse is delicious!
Shed a tear or two when the americans started singing the national anthem, that felt great to listen to
???
The church, The Norway Building, has been moved back to Norway, and is currently located at Bårdshaug Herregård in Orkanger.
There’s a lot of us in Seattle and the skagit valley of Washington State don’t forget us!
Very important.
A lot of people from my part of Norway has reletives inn Seattle.
@@sindretafjord5281 when I was young the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle was all us!
@@corrlee Jah Jah! Ballard High School! "Lutefisk, Lutefisk, Lefse,Lefse, we're from Ballard, jah you betcha!
America even has the best Norwegians!
Hah ha ha!!
Good Job. It's Ok to be a proud Norwegian American. And we're American's first. Most of us feel we gave up too much of the language.
I'm a Canadian and my mother whose mother was Norwegian American also thought of herself as Canadian. Both in Canada and the U.S. in the 1920's, speaking a language other than English was seen as unAmerican or unCanadian. There were German language schools and French language schools in Ontario up to 1912 when they were forbidden. The language of instruction was to be English. Choquette's history of French language schools mentions that there were German language schools as well as French language schools shut down by the government "in a place called Berlin, [Ontario"]. He didn't seem to realize that Berlin, Ontario was renamed Kitchener, an important southern Ontario city. The German schools never re-opened, but, of course, the French schools today are enjoying a Renaissance since the federal government started providing funds for them and for English schools in Quebec.
Mange amerikanere på videoen som snakker utmerket norsk, jeg er søkkimponert. Hilsen fra Nord-Norge :)
A lot of americans on this video that speaks excellent norwegian, I'm pretty damned impressed. Greetings from Northern Norway :)
PianoWorks danish is written almost the same as norwegian
@@Spavvner Yeah, our written language (or half of it i guess) is based off of Danish, even alot of our speech.
@@Spavvner it doesn’t sound the same thats for sure
@@burger9997 depends on what parts of Norway/Denmark and how fast or sloppy they speak. Norske i Sørlandet er ofte temmelig fine til at slå over i norsk udtalt på dansk og danskere med lidt sprogøre evner osse den omvendte manøvre, mere skal der ikke til
Ah you missed some nice Norwegian spots in Minnesota though! Skogfjorden language camp in Bemidji as well as the Norwegian institute in Minneapolis. St. Olaf College also, their logo is the Norwegian crest.
Alas, unfortunately! :) We had to make a selection. We stopped by St. Olaf though.
My Family of Origin came from MN and WI and everyone still lives there, except our family. I recently did AncestryDNA and discovered that I am 52% Scandinavian`` specifically, Norwegian from the Oslo area. There are Norwegians in my family on both my mother and father side. My maternal grandmother came here when she was 2 years old. We did celebrate many foods from Norway and even some of the music and some of the folk tales of Norway when I was little. I am proud of my heritage.. Thanks for sharing this video. I hope to visit Norway one day soon
Oh.. We know you are there. I took a dna test too and found alot of relatives in the States. Most here have you know.. ine, norway
I live in Park Ridge, Illinois, just northwest of Chicago. We have a huge Norwegian celebration here every year, with a parade and people in the traditional dress of their ancestral village. There is also a big fair with vendors selling handmade Norwegian items.
I always bought my children their winter mittens and hats from the women who would sit knitting in the little booths. I still have them-they are gorgeous.
Is knitting a Norwegian tradition? My mother's mother's family was from Iowa. Her Grandfather was the only sibling born in Norway and her grandmother was born in Iowa. My grandmother crocheted and tatted. She didn't knit. My mother, however, was taught to knit by a teacher at Camrose Luthern College in Camrose, Alberta during her last year of high school. She knit all her sweaters. All of our sweaters (4 children). My father's sweaters. Her winter hats. Mittens. Scarves. A dress and a skating skirt for my daughter. A Ninja turtle sweater for myson. She even had some left over wool and knit place mats once. I thought that was excessive. A footcare R.N. told me she didn't knit cables. "What?" I thought, "How can you call yourself a knitter if you don't knit cable sweaters. Aran knit sweaters my mother's specialty.
@@dinkster1729 I mean, it must be. Some of the women I saw knitting were born in the US into Norwegian families. But I remember one vendor who was born in Norway, and her mother would sit in a chair in the booth knitting.
This is where I bought most of my children’s winter hats and mittens. The vendor had a strong Norwegian accent and her mother didn’t speak English.
@@maryannebrown2385 I had a beautiful medium to dark green Aran knit sweater that my mother knit for me. Unfortunately, I left it at an end of year party where I was teaching on Fogo Island. I had to drive back to get it when I realized that I had left it at the people's house who had the party. When I explained to a friend of mine why I had to drive back, she exclaimed, "That old sweater like the fisherman wear!" LOLOL! Some people have no respect for the old ways, I guess. Just for the record, the pattern came from a copy of Woman's Weekly and was not meant to be worn by "old fishermen" whatever this Newfoundland woman thought. LOLOL! I wonder what a sweater like that would cost a tourist visiting in Newfoundland or Ireland. Even the wool today would be worth a pretty penny.
@@maryannebrown2385 My Grandmother spoke perfect North American English and when she spoke with her slightly younger sister and her youngest brother she spoke to them in English and they replied in English. They didn't speak Norwegian among themselves. I only met my Great-Grandmother twice before she died about 1953 or so. I was only 4 then so I don't know if her English was unaccented or not, but I presume it would be since she was born in Iowa to Norwegian parents. I don't know if she spoke Norwegian to her children or not. Probably, she did, but not all the time like her husband. My Grandmother tried speaking Norwegian to Norwegian immigrants in Calgary, Alberta, but they claimed they didn't understand her. I believe American Norwegian is different from the Norwegian spoken in Norway today. I guess these Norwegian immigrants didn't make much of an effort to speak Norwegian to my Grandmother either. They probably wanted to use their English as much as possible. (My Grandmother lived with my mother here in Kingston, Ontario for 8 years before she died after her husband passed away in 1973 so she told me some of her childhood experiences and of her experiences as a young woman farming on the Canadian prairie.
@@dinkster1729 So my Great-Grandparents had an arranged marriage. They both emigrated from Germany, but he was 44 and she was 24 when they got married. He wrote letters to her, she came to North Dakota and they married four days later.
They had 15 children, one of which was my Grandmother. My Grandmother never learned German. It was very frowned upon to speak anything other than English. Her parents only spoke to her in English.
Det er forbausende at det ennå er norsksnakkende mennesker i Amerika! Jeg er amerikansk selv, og det er veldig uvanlig å høre enhver den tale noe utlandsk språk, særlig eget språk, bortsett fra engelsk (og man kann si at engelsktalende folk taler ikke sitt eget språk også, med alle de franske og latinske ordene i engelsk).
Norway was a very poor country until they found and started extracting oil in the seventies. We Swedes always make fun of them for not having any advanced technology or big industries of their own saying that they are a little bit stupid and lazy.
However they are always making fun of us as well. It's all in good spirit and we consider them our brothers and sisters.
Nowadays they are very rich and successful due to oil and natural gas. Some Swedes even go there to work because of the good wages and beautiful nature. Visited Bergen 2 times myself. Lovely city with great people and loads of rain. Skål era jäklar!
Typical Swede not to know Norway. Norwegian shipping and the shipping industry as well as hydropower and power-intensive industries such as smelters are probably not considered advanced technology for Swedes.
Technology for the applications you mentioned is only partially developed in Norway. They have alot of Swedish tech in their smelters and hydro plants. Norways economy before oil was focused around marine, fishing and agricultural sectors.
I am so fascinated by Norwegian American culture! Thanks for making this documentary!
Thank you!
@@NorthernHistory I'm sure these folks are only Norwegian a few days a year. LOLOL!
During WWI and afterwards, my grandmother's family stopped speaking Norwegian in public. They were afraid of being mistaken for Germans.
Maybe, they were just afraid of being mistaken for foreigners. My Grandmother born in 1898 didn't approve at all of me learning to speak French. She was brain-washed into thinking that you should only speak English even though her father born in Norway in the 1870s only spoke to his wife and children in Norwegian although he was perfectly fluent in English since he was the only child born in Norway, the younger ones were born in Iowa.
I have nothing but appreciation for Nords. A gorgeous, rich culture for sure.
But the best european culture is the Mediterranean.
@@hectorcardenas2171 why you say that??? All cultures are great!!!
@@hectorcardenas2171 Saying Mediterranean culture is a bit like saying British accent, there are quite a few of each. The culture north of the Mediterranean is very different from the culture to the south. Italy itself has several distinct areas with their own culture as does Spain. At a guess I would say that what is considered Mediterranean in the US is probably southern Italian culture.
@@peterc.1618 neither of you understood my comment. My comment has deeper meaning.
Min mor kom fra Norge mai 1954. Nå begynner hun å snakke litt engelsk.
Først nå? :p
@@Neophema ja litt seint
24:12 Lutefisk IN A CUP? Oh no no no no.. As a Norwegian, that is waaay too strange. xD It's supposed to be eaten together with cooked potatoes, sirup sauce and bacon with bacon grease, kohlrabi puree, pea puree with some mustard on the side and some shredded brown cheese sprinkled on top. With some aquavit to sip on the side. Of course, there are many variants to the dish, but traditionally, Norwegians never eat just the fish.
Lutfesk soup. . .
@@jubmelahtes I like Lutefisk.. But, that's just disgusting.. xD No one eats the fish alone, it's essensially tasteless without the proper preparations and additions to the dish.
@@bobmalibaliyahmarley1551 I eat it with only lefse with butter on. Yammi, don't ruin it with bacon, sirup or mustard. Maybee coarse black pepper sprinkled on top.
@@livmaritengene4973 Lutefisk with lefse and butter is a new variant for me, I'm not gonna knock it since its probably good, there are many ways to serve it, but we can all agree on that Lutefisk ALONE in a cup.. Is very strange. xD
@@bobmalibaliyahmarley1551 Oh yes, very strange. And lefse as we have with lutefisk is made of mostly potatoes (not sweet).
Why is that suddenly in my recommendations? I don't even speak Norwegian.
... yet.
So interesting to see. I am a mexican born in the Mexico-US border, so I am no stranger to the mainstream US culture and ways, but when I first visited the northern part of the US, like North Dakota an Minnesota, I started seeing so many people that looked norweigan to me. Just a week ago I visited Minneapolis for a short stay and saw several references to vikings and Norway, so I started googleing and was shocked to understand why I thought that in the first place. After finding out that deep rooted connection, then I found this film.
It's great it incorporates the producers' live opinions; as someone who has been in several countries and continents, I have had similar cultural shocks like the ones they (and probably the scandinavian ancestors) had; this country is still a very separate thing of the rest of the world. This material also pictures the reality of living in the US: In social studies we say "it's not good or bad, it just is", and the film pictures that sense of ownership which is practically the core of the "american" culture: owning stuff, in darker cases owning people, and even owning a culture or tradition, not meaning you are living it or even incorporating it to your daily set of values.
Very interesting to watch!
13:22 In 2012 this sign (the green one saying Little Norway), and the entire stave chuch replica, was bought from Scott Winner and moved back back to Orkanger. I was very surprised to suddenly hear the name Orkanger in this documentary. I live there...
Interesting to see this kind of solidarity and community among the immigrants and their children. I am a first generation immigrant to Norway, but there is nothing like this at all for my culture and heritage, if anything I have become more absorbed and integrated into Norwegian culture because of this. I would like to visit some of these places one day and meet Norwegian Americans, despite not actually being Norwegian myself
It's only a few people of Norwegian ancestry who continue to celebrate their Norwegian roots. Since I inherited my Great-Grandfather's cup with which he made his first communion which is in a little box with his initials and a date on it I am wondering about my Norwegian ancestry more. I knew my Grandmother's family was born and raised partly in Iowa, but I don't even know exactly where in Iowa. My youngest sister went on a trip to the old area with my mother in 1986 or so to visit some cousins of my Grandmother so I should ask her where exactly my Grandmother was raised. I visited the cousins briefly when I was 7 with my family as well, but I don't remember where it was. They had a pig farm. I remember the horrible sty those pigs lived in. My Mother lived till she was nearly 96 so I only inherited the communion cup (it resembles a shot glass that is decorated a couple of years ago.) I will pass it on to my daughter and I hope she will pass it on to her daughter who is now 12.
Funny to see Kai Robert Johansen playing his trumpet. He is from my town Sarpsborg in Norway 🇳🇴 😊
Så fint at det er mye om Norge i USA også!🇳🇴
I'm so impressed about the guy in 24:54. He's Norwegian is spot on.
I know, he studied Norwegian in the States, and was fluent.
He's nowhere near fluent and his Norwegian is not spot on. I can understand him, though, and that's what matters most. :)
@@Neophema pretty close though
its not spot on man, it sounds kinda swedish like. but the flow is kinda good. Ive met somalis who speak better.
Lyksmannen hadde han bodd en måned i Norge hadde det vært perfekt. det er helt vilt hvor flink han var synes jeg!
Svært velprodusert video!
Jeg er ikke norsk, men jeg følte at jeg er norsk, et land hvor jeg finner det som mitt hjem, og hjem er hvor din hjerte ligger på, det er Norge for meg. Jeg håper å besøk Mid vesten i fremtiden og finne forbindelsen til Norge. ❤️🇳🇴
Hva faen
@@ostekakeutenost1308 hva faen, Han heter svensk
Lovely hearing Norwegians pronounce Midwest places.. also funny how Norwegians can pronounce Illinois correctly but many Midwesterners can’t!
I’ve seen similar things to this except for Swedes, being Swedish-American myself. My ancestors came a while back in the late 1800’s, yet still today I’ve got many odd roots. My family has a rich history at a Swedish college, including my father who works there. My grandma’s house is filled with cute little trinkets and decor reminiscent of a rural Swedish home. My childhood church was an old church founded by the Swedes... incidentally I grew up thinking all Lutheran churches looked so ornate and old-fashioned (until I visited other Lutheran churches, of course). The Swedish language is sadly dead. We keep a few “trinket phrases” alive like “uff da,” “välkommen,” “hallo,” and calling a grandma “mor-mor,” but nothing resembling conversing in svenska.
I do feel like it’s reaching its last breath though, sadly. Thank you for documenting this. As this continues to fizzle out, it becomes more and more important to record this. This was very cool seeing real Scandinavians raise a magnifying glass to the Scandinavian-American culture I grew up around.
Have you heard of a TV series called Allt for Sverige? It's available her on YT and you might find it interesting. It's basically a combination of a gameshow and a reality show where Swedish Americans go to Sweden and take part in various challenges and the winner gets to meet his Swedish relatives. The challenges take part all over Sweden so you get to see quite a lot of the country. One of the early contestants loved the country so much that he'd been back nine times before they did the follow-up show (10th anniversary show I thnk it was).
For any Norwegian Americans reading this the show format originated in Norway and most of their seasons are also available here on YT (Alt for Norge, marketed in the US as The Great Norway Experience I think).
About twenty years back I was a captain on at Japanese owned combined car and container carrier on a run between ports in Japan and San Diego, San Pedro, Portland and Vancouver. Almost every trip up to Portland I would meet someone with Norwegian ancestry. One trip, the Columbia Bar pilot had some Norwegian connection, the pilot onboard the vessel ahead of us came from Stavanger. We had to anchor outside Astoria to wait for berth at Portland, and I had visit from authorities and agent, both with some Norwegian connections. The same with the Columbia River pilot. But what was really fun was when we was alongside at Portland. That call I had the opportunity to take a fast trip to Jansen Beach for some shopping. In the cab back the driver, he did look latino, asked me where I came from. I told him I was Norwegian, and also told him abut all the people with som Norwegian connections I did meet in the area. Then the driver told me when he was a kid, his grandparents always spoke Norwegian at home.
My Great-Grandmother died in Seattle in 1948. She was of Norwegian American heritage from Iowa. My mother was born in Spokane, Washington in 1923 because her Grandmother lived there and my grandparents were visiting in December. My Great Aunt died in the Portland Oregan area in 1980 because her husband and she had retired there from the East Coast of the U.S. Yeah! There are probably lots of people of Norwegian American descent on the West Coast. They are descended from Vikings after all.
Great documentary. I learned a lot, both about Norwegians, but also Americans. I wonder why there is so much lefse og flatbrød? And that cabbage thing served at about 24:14 didn't look very delicious. It isn't really a Norwegian thing just serving cabbage stu and nothing else beside, like poatoes and meat of lamb. Why not promote Norwegian nature and wilderness. That's a really unique side of Norway that you hardly find elsewhere in the world. 3000ft mountains rising up from some of the biggest fjords in the world. Tourism could be a bond between Americans, Norwegian-Americans and Norwegians. Greetings from Halden, Norway :)
@@mrworldwide3679 strange, very strange
Canada has lots of wilderness as well and it's closer to the U.S. than Norway.
I have also noticed alot of the old countries view us as yanks only but they have to remember we are a very new country that holds on to the old values and ways to a big extent. Ways that have been mostly forgotten in our ancestral home lands. Oneday America will be a mostly homogenous country with more of an identity. But these days we are still fresh on the world timeline
Jeg elsker Norsk og jeg er fra Amerika
@@tom33453 Jeg elsker Amerika og Australia og er fra Norge!
I got a great grandfather who left his family behind and went on a boat to the states somewhere. Havent been able to track him down.
new food they can try to eat:
smalahove
freia melkesjokolade
For et ekkelt nickname og profilbilde du har valgt 😂
these Americans are more into Norwegian culture than most norwegians (speaking as a norwegian myself)
Rose Nylund put the Norwegian Americans on the map. Before her, I didn't even know about them 😄
I had no idea there was so much ethnic activity going on around me. My ancestors were careful not to teach their children anything Norwegian at all. Now we're only American, but look Norwegian.
At least there was a lot, 8 years ago (when this was shot). This film is starting to become history now, with many memories and people who are in it.
why?
@@gullfeber They didn't want their children to get beat up at school. The U.S. has never been kind to immigrants. I believe this is why many formed their own communities in some of the rural areas. Us city people had to assimilate for the most part, although we do have Norway House and Mindekirken here in Minneapolis.
@@amyellen3845 I can relate...I'm from Southern Louisiana and am 100% cajun yet my generation and most of my parent's generation can't speak the unique dialect of Cajun French. When my grandparent's generation went to school, they were severely punished if they spoke French. My grandfather was 6 when he started learning English and just imagine going to school and you and your friends are not allowed to speak your native language. You have to communicate using a language you hardly know. The schools brainwashed them into feeling ashamed for who they are and their language is considered "poor pathetic people" language. This is why my parents never learned Cajun French. Their moms and dads were ashamed to teach it and they didn't want their children to be attacked over speaking that language. Today, almost noone speaks it. It's a language that is about to die and it kills me because I wanted to learn it but don't have a proper teacher.
@@brandonduet7771
Thatis so sad. So important to keep unicue cultures and their languages! ❤️
My 10th Great Grandfather, Andries Artensen Bradt, came here to New Ansterdam(New York) in the late 1500's. He died in 1616, in Schenectady, NY. I'm learning more and more about Norwegian culture. Very fun!
I read about the Norwegian 'colony' in New York. It is a really insteresting story, but one I couldnt cover in the film. Another time!
Wow! You still have records about your 10th GGfather. Great!
@@juggernaut420 Yes. I did the ancestry DNA thing. He was the father of my 9th Great Grandmother who married to my 9 GGF Tomys Swartwout, from Groningen, Netherlands. He was one of the first Dutch that came to the "new" world and traded tabacco in the Netherlands. There is a huge book called the "Swartwout Chronicles", it has a history of my mother's side of the family that came here. There were Norwegians that lived in Noordholland and came with the Dutch to settle Long Island and Manhattan in New Amsterdam. I have a whole line from that GGF that is traced back to the 1300's. My family was Frisian-Dutch. A small Germanic tribe that lived on the Archipelago from the Netherlands to Denmark. Do the ancestry DNA, it's amazing.
You may be happy to know also that there are large concentrations of Scandinavian Americans (myself included) living in the Rocky Mountain region in the American West, due to mass conversions to Mormonism in Denmark (primarily), Sweden, and Norway in the 19th century. Every second or third person you meet in central Utah is a Hansen/son, Larsen/son (my mother's name), Madsen/son, Oveson, etc.
my great grandparents were mormons. they used to jokingly treaten my grandmother with "selling her to the gypsies", so im thinking of writing a ficticious book about the final battle taking place between mormons and roaming bands of gypsies
Så visst!
@@torekristoffersen176 Kristoffersen/Christoffersen is actually a surname that I run into in Utah sometimes. Prominent Mormon Church leader (and former lawyer) Todd D Christoffersen is an example.
@@ScottJB ja jeg bor i Utah nå. Enig
@@torekristoffersen176 Ah, det er fantasisk! Er du fra Norge?
DECORAH: LUTHERANS GONE WILD
I choked :D that's hilarious.
Minnesota are scandavian states in usa 😍😍
Wow! That was an amazing view. It was a joy to hear Norwegian still spoken by the younger folks you met. I had to get a book and learn it on my own when I was about 11 or 12. Over the past 60 years I think I've had maybe six or seven conversations with other Norwegian speakers. Considering how my family (Slekten Bull fra Trøndelag) is so wide spread around the planet, it amazes me that I haven't met more folks from Norway. But then, I live in Buckeyestan and my only neighbors with 2nd language skills are the Mexicans, who think I speak like a Cuban. (I learned Spanish from Cuban shortwave radio and Puerto Rican teachers, so the accent's definitely Caribbean ;-) ) Who knows what my battered, book-learned Norwegian sounds like.
. . . Thanks for the work you put into this video. Nice work.
@@cotionicar Jeg kan en liten norsk fra tid til annen. Leser jeg det temmelig god; jeg har to eksempler av slektsboken som ble skrevet av min oldefar. Men man hører ikke norsk her i Ohio. En gang i Utah hadde jeg en samtale med en norsk pike, misjonær ved LDS museet. En gang da, og for mange år siden kunne jeg snakke med norsk radioamatørene. Ikke idag. Så, ja, jeg kan norsk ennå. En liten ;-)
@@haramanggapuja Du er flink til å skrive norsk også vil jeg si
@@KevinSolem Takk. Jeg synes at norsk er ikke så vanskelig å lære. Uttalen, vel, det er en annen sak ;-)
Etter at jeg begynnte å lære norsk, da jeg var i skolen, lærte jeg også spansk og fra den, da jeg var i universitet, språkvitenskap. Avdelingsdirektørinne var dansk. Det var veldig interesant. En av mine FaceBook venner var min profesorinne av språkvitenskap også.
@@haramanggapuja Smarting du Nils, kunne gjerne tenkt meg å lært flere språk selv. Engelsk er såklart obligatorisk, men kunne tenkt meg å lært tysk eller russisk også.
I følge wikipedia er Bull et kjent etternavn. Er det mange generasjoner siden forfedrene dine dro til usa?
@@KevinSolem Jeg har her slektsbokene fra 1938 og 1976 med den hele familien fra 1510. Min kusine har boka fra 1800s, skrev av oldefar Nils Rosing Bull. Min far, George Bull Young, og hans bror, Nils Rosing Bull Young, var barna til Thomas Wilfred Young og Helga Bull. Oldemor Helga kom her til Gringolandet om 1900. Thomas var en voldsom alkoholiker. Helga dødde (selvmørd) da far og hans bror var unge. Vi forstår at Helga og sønnene var i Norge etter oldefar Nils dødde, omkring 1920. Slekten har en side på FaceBook. Jeg også. Du kan treffe meg der bedre enn her ;-)
norwegian woman looks like the stereotypical school lunch lady
10,000 Sweds went through the weeds all chased by one Norwegian.....Grandpa Skaar.
For my Native American Brother - some people never mature after high school. They can be the most educated and wealthiest - but they are still inhumane.
Very sad. But it’s reality.
I'm from the town where the little norway building now stands. I remember when they brought it back and assembled it. So that was pretty cool to see.
Among a box of my father's personal effects I received after his passing, I came across a copy of a letter my Aunt had sent him years back indicting the dwelling of a first generation Norwegian immigrant of ours was at Nordkedalen in WI. I hope to visit it someday!
My Relatives were involved in the 1862 uprising on 3 sides of my family history. One of the first 1/2 French/ Native American traders killed, A little girl, who was to become my great gran, survived hiding in a barn. And an German Great Uncle who arrived in St. Paul by boat on the day of the war and his wife cared for a traumatized little girl who saw her parents murdered. They went on to settle in the exact area of the uprising.
It`s crazy how the norwiganamericans speak the 1800 version of norwigan
America is so strange,- in regards to immigrant communities.
As a Dane I know that many Danes also settled. Oddly Scandinaviens and (white) Europeans have been able to almost religiously keep a hold of traditions and lifestyle, where as people from other parts of the world that comes around now, are expected to completely assimilate.
Back in day, msny setylers did not just immigrate because of the easy access to land. They also immigrated because they were un-wanted religious minorities...
Though America is a melting pot of immigrants who really pushed out the minority natives, apparently it's different strokes for different folks. Just lusten to the guy experiencing racism, apparently he is not allowed to call himself Norwegien 🤔
It is also strange to me how old fashioned many of these comminities are. Like Solvang and Elkhorn, which are very populated by Danish Americans. I think many would be surprised to experience how different the "old countries" are, at this point. Agriculture has been limited, production work is limited, academic or occupationel schooling of some sort is the norm, churches have little to no power as they've been secularised etc.
Even languages have developed because we travel a lot more across borders and are tought foreign languages as obligatory classes from as early as 1st.grade. That goes for the entirety of Scandinavia.
Very interesting but... oh so strange to people in the "old countries" I think.
12:25 that dude speaks English like a Norwegian bloke that's been abroad for too long.
Yeah, you could really tell he grew up around people whose first language was not English.
This made me wanna visit Minnesota or the mid-west in general tbh😅
28:12 Jim Morrison lives!
These people are more Norwegian culturally than the whole of Norway itself
Nonsense.
@Raulito Fernández exaggerate more
15:12 Haha love the norwegian-english
I always wondered if I have relatives in the US. My family hails from the south and north of Norway. Pretty sure some emigrated. I need to investigate.
I didn’t know about any relatives in the US but I did a DNA-test and found a whole bunch! I have even been contacted by some of them and together we try to figure out who our common ancestors are!