Sara Howard’s middle school art students from Ventura Village’s own Hope Academy have been working hard all year to create a showcase of their remarkable work. These students have been learning new skills and expanding their creativity throughout the year, exploring the following questions with each class time:

What exactly is art?

Why do we create?

What is the purpose of art?

Sara and her students hope that you can join them to celebrate these students’ hard work and creativity this year, and please encourage others to visit the showcase throughout the weekend.

Norway House is partnering with the Giants of the Earth Heritage Center in Spring Grove to bring a taste of Minnesota’s first Norwegian settlement in Minneapolis! A charming and vibrant town in Southeastern Minnesota, Spring Grove is a perfect focus as we work to highlight the many vibrant historically Norwegian communities around the United States. Onsite security provided.

Peruse displays from Giants of the Earth, comic strip characters Han Ola og Han Per, and other Spring Grove organizations and destinations, and see some of the stories from the Giants Oral Histories Project.

Our Spring Grove friends join the community at our neighbor Mindeirken for a tour of the historic church and to stay for lunch and the program of the week:
Mary Rosendahl—food scientist, quilter, and certified autobiography instructor. Mary enjoys marrying her interests in food and quilting with family history to help others create family keepsakes.

Crispy, delicate krumkake cookies are usually associated with Christmas. However, you can enjoy krumkake all year long! By switching up the flavors, we can make krumkake for any occasion. In this spring-themed class, we'll make strawberry cardamom krumkake and lemon lavender krumkake. We'll cover the basics in this hands-on class, but most of our time will be spent making cookies, so all skill levels are welcome! Bring an apron and a container so you can take home cookies.

Heidi Eger is perhaps best known as our “Lefse Guru” and also runs a lamb farm near Spring Grove which will provide the meat for the fårikål (lamb in cabbage) at our Spring Dinner: An Evening to Celebrate Spring Grove.

Mindekirken norskeklubben is a Norwegian language and culture group for kids around ages 5 to 12 that explores the theme sanger og fortellinger (songs and stories). With an informal structure, activities may include games, songs, art projects, and dramatic play.

Registration is required, but it is FREE to attend.

A skilled writing instructor, Brenda Hudson, will guide grandparents and grandchildren through facilitated writing exercises, learning more about each other and capturing a shared family memory or two.

Have fun with Ethan Bjelland Hagberg, our resident Eurovision Nerd over the course of three Saturdays at Norway House. Buy the three-part course, or pick and choose the topics that interest you. Classes include playlists, take-home sheets, activities, and lively discussion!

Presented by the Norwegian Glee Club of Minneapolis

Seatings at 12:30pm, 2:00pm, and 3:00pm

$29 | General Registration
$10 | Ages 7-12
6 & under are free

Learn how to craft a greenwood spoon and finish the class with your own hand-carved serving spoon!

Add color and humor to your Syttende Mai dinner with a cheerful Norwegian flag and bearded Viking cookies. Amy Decker, former owner of OFB Bakery in Homer, Alaska, and Alma, Wisconsin, will teach you how to decorate cookies that are small pieces of edible art. They brighten your celebrations and are sure-fire sellers at bake sales.

We're having a Norwegian Community Celebration on Thursday, April 18 when the Wild take on the Seattle Kraken. Ticket pack offer includes a Minnesota Wild Norwegian scarf. A portion of each ticket pack sold will benefit the Norway House.

The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival is featuring quite a few Norwegian films this year! Among them, is Listen Up! (Hør her’a!)—”A sparkling dramedy about identity, gender, class, and family.”

Ethan Bjelland Hagberg, who has taught two courses on the book through the Mindekirken Norwegian Language + Culture Program, is hosting a casual happy hour meet-up at Pracna before the 7:15pm screening on Thursday, April 18th. Stop by to talk about the book and learn some of the Norwegian slang and ethnolect used in the film!

Join our dear friends at Mindekirken for their weekly lunch and lecture program, featuring Steve Larson—a public speaker and entertainer who grew up in Thief River Falls, MN, graduated from Bemidji State University, and currently lives in Tonka Bay on Lake Minnetonka. He was a sportscaster for 10 years, owned a photography studio for 33 years in Grafton, ND, and portrayed Buddy Holly in the group Rock ’N Roll Heaven. Steve has been married to his high school sweetheart for 49 years and has three children along with eight grandchildren.

Steve will give a unique, nostalgic audio/visual presentation where “cardboard comes to life” through stories and songs, utilizing Steve’s extensive sports card collection. Join us for an entertaining trip down “memory lane” emphasizing baseball, while embracing many facets of life. Wear your favorite team’s baseball gear for TOH!!!

Take me out to the ballgame!

In this seminar and discussion, teaching artist Jeanine Malec will highlight the overlapping motifs as well as unique characteristics that unite and define these two fascinating historical traditions in knotwork and design. Rounding out our panel, Carstens Smith, Director of Education at Norway House and Steve Griffith, Education Chair and history instructor at Celtic Junction will share their insights on the overlapping histories between Norway and Ireland and how they intersect in America.

In this class you will make a summerside primstav with symbols relevant to your life and gain an appreciation of the calendar's history and the many tasks of farm life that it was used to put in order.

Have fun with Ethan Bjelland Hagberg, our resident Eurovision Nerd over the course of three Saturdays at Norway House. Buy the three-part course, or pick and choose the topics that interest you. Classes include playlists, take-home sheets, activities, and lively discussion!

Six colleges founded by Norwegian-American immigrants in the 19th century came together to sponsor an annual summer Peace Scholars program in Norway, designed to deepen students’ understanding of dialogue and conflict by learning about Norway’s approach to these topics both domestically and abroad.

Students are currently elected through an application and interview process as Peace Scholars—from Augsburg University, Concordia College (Moorhead), Luther College, Pacific Lutheran University, and St. Olaf  College—to be awarded a seven-week academic experience including a dialogue-focused pre-week. The Peace Scholars program is an outgrowth of the Noble Peace Prize Forum. The forum was founded in 1988 by the five-college consortium of Augsburg, Augustana (Sioux Falls), Concordia (Moorhead), Luther, and St. Olaf.

The 2024 Peace Scholars conference will include presentations from the 2023 Peace Scholars and a keynote speech: The Rule of Law—The Path to Peace by the Honorable John R. Tunheim, U.S. District Judge for the District of Minnesota. The conference is free and largely open to the public—with a few private engagements—and we welcome you to join us, learn with us, and meet others with a passion and dedication for peace!

Norway House’s book club meets monthly. This is a great way to get to know others in our community and get in on some really great reads! Books are available for sale at ALSO Ingebretsen’s Gavebutikk at Norway House. There is no fee to attend.

Norway House members are invited for a special breakfast series in the Kaffebar every month!

Join our dear friends at Mindekirken for their weekly lunch and lecture program, featuring Ellen Hofsø—author of nine popular fiction books providing glimpses into the lived experiences of the Sami in Scandinavia.

Her most recent book—Messe for de navnløse (A Mass for the Nameless)—was inspired by a mass held by Pastor Gunnar Kristiansen in 2004. Having taken place on a cemetery in Gildeskål, Norway, the mass was for all of the Sami who were buried in an unmarked mass grave. The presentation will be held in a style that is called bokbad (book bath) in Norway, where Ellen Hofsø and Pastor Gunnar will engage in a dialogue about her book.

Learn how to draw zoomorphic Viking designs — for all experience levels.

Mindekirken norskeklubben is a Norwegian language and culture group for kids around ages 5 to 12 that explores the theme sanger og fortellinger (songs and stories). With an informal structure, activities may include games, songs, art projects, and dramatic play.

Registration is required, but it is FREE to attend.

Have fun with Ethan Bjelland Hagberg, our resident Eurovision Nerd over the course of three Saturdays at Norway House. Buy the three-part course, or pick and choose the topics that interest you. Classes include playlists, take-home sheets, activities, and lively discussion!

Kim Donaldson is a storyteller interested in Genealogy, History, Photography and Travel since a young girl. She has been archiving vintage photography and old family stories for years. Magnus and Gina: Unbeaten by the North Dakota Prairie is a nonprofit philanthropy project for the National Association of the Deaf. Kim is the great granddaughter of Magnus and Gina.

Learn how to draw zoomorphic Viking designs — for all experience levels.

Buffet Style: Adults $15, Families $30
Reservations required; pay at the door (cash or check, please)

Norway House members are invited for a special breakfast series in the Kaffebar every month!