Day 5 - Americana

Did the Vikings reach Minnesota in 1362?

We live through stories. They help us make sense of our lives. They order random events and create meaning where there was none. They amuse and entertain and make us into heroes of the narrative we construct. It's a way for us to say "I matter." Perhaps that's why I'm writing this blog. Perhaps that's why Alexandria, Minnesota, population 12,681, the county seat of Douglas Co. (whose most recent claim to fame is that no one ran for public office in key seats) likes to call itself the Birthplace of America. Instead of being just another local shopping hub and a truck stop off Interstate 94 between Minneapolis and Fargo, it can erect a huge statue and claim the Vikings beat out Columbus and Verrazano, that Scandinavians were the true discovers and first Western Europeans to set foot in the Lower 48.

I stayed overnight in Alexandria and delayed my departure to investigate further,

Few dispute that the Norse explorer Lief Erikson in the 10th century founded settlements along coastal parts of Canada, a place old Nordic legends call Vinland. But did the Vikings really reach Minnesota? Well, there's a whole museum here to convince you that they did. The evidence lies in a runestone, unearthed in 1898 by a farmer and his sons in Douglas County. Professionals call it a fake. The Smithsonian has contested its provenance. Yet a veritable cottage industry of experts for over 100 years has continued to claim the stone tells the tale of how 10 Scandinavian explorers, part of a larger party of 30, in 1362 met a bloody end in the farmlands of Minnesota.

Kensington Runestone, date 1362 or 1898 - you decide.

What I found most compelling in the Runestone Museum, however, was not the conspiracy theories about why the Scandinavian founding of America was being suppressed by forces out East, but the gorgeous beadwork on clothing from the Ojibwe and Chippewa peoples, the Native Americans who were here in Minnesota long before any Europeans started invading. Sadly too little mention was made of their rich history.

Clothing donated to the museum by a local doctor who had ministered to Native Americans

Discoverers of America or not, you have to respect how intrepid these Norse explorers were. The museum has reconstructed a Viking ship, and I certainly wouldn't want to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a storm in a shallow sailboat like this.

Replica of Viking ship, three-quarters size, in Runestone Museum

The need for histories and origin stories runs deep. Finding out what matters to others, even when you disagree, gives you windows into other ways of seeing the world.