NORWAY DAY 2011

 Norway Day falls on the second Sunday in July each year. This year will mark the 79th
year of celebrating on July 10, 2011. It is held at Minnehaha Park in
Minneapolis, the home of the Minnehaha Water Falls which due to the heavy rains
we have experienced in the past few months was flowing with great force. This
day is a celebration of Norwegian ancestry which has become a yearly tradition
for many local Norwegian immigrants, their children and now grandchildren. I am
a first generation Norwegian-American and I attended my first Norway Day with
my father and mother when I was about two years old. I don’t know that anyone
would have thought we would still be participating in this celebration some
fifty years later, but we are. First there is always a Lutheran Church service
(most of the Norwegians are Lutheran) presented by the Mindekirken Church in
Minneapolis where services are still held in Norwegian and of course English
too. The Nordic dancers perform on stage along with the Norwegian Glee Club
which my father has belonged to for over fifty years. This year a newly formed
group, Daughters of Norway, had a small choir perform, also. The event consists
of booths selling Norwegian and Scandinavian books, sweaters, music and an
authentic Scandinavian food booth, Nordic Treats. A number of years back, my
sisters and I attended the event and were shocked to see there were no
authentic Norwegian foods to purchase. Now it may seem odd, but our mother who
is 100% German learned to make the Norwegian foods and taught us, so we decided
to sign up to have a food booth at the event the following year. Thus in 2005,
Nordic Treats booth was started. We serve Norwegian Meatballs, Klub, Romegrott,
Norwegian Heart -shaped Waffles, Norwegian Ferry Boat Pancakes, Sandbakkles, Krumkake,
Lefse, and Norwegian little Donuts. We also sell Nordic Photo cards featuring
photos I took in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, a Norwegian
Children’s book I wrote, Real Norwegians Eat Lutefisk, with matching T-shirts,
a Nordic Family cookbook my sister wrote, Norway Day bookmarks my sister made
and other miscellaneous Norwegian items. It has become a family tradition,
where each year we add more items to sell to our list and are joined by family
members who come great distances to be with us. Last year on probably the
hottest day of the year, my daughter and her family came from Oklahoma, my
nephew came from California, my sister came from Florida and my son and nephew
along with other family friends from the Minneapolis area