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Velkommen til Forbindelsestad!
Actually the Scandinavian Festival in Junction City was worth quite a lot more than a 15 mile drive. The festival is a four-day event held every year -- 2007 is the 47 th annual. The fair is four days because there are four Scandinavian countries and they each have to have a special day -- Danish Day, Finnish Day, Norwegian Day and Swedish Day. (Some claim there are only three Scandinavian countries and don't include Finland; some say seven and add Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. It depends on the context -- cultural, political, historical. For this celebration there are four.)
We went on Norwegian Day, Saturday. I went with my friend Wally, who lives part-time in Washington D.C. and part time in Oregon. This is Oregon time because it's gosh-awful hot and muggy in D.C. right now. (For you foreigners who don't know this, our nation's capitol is built on a swamp. How smart is that? And that decision was made a looooooong time ago.)
The festival comprises food and drink, crafts and entertainment -- oh and costumes and flags. Costumes and flags first, I guess. I can't tell the difference among the various counties' national outfits, and to tell the truth, the only flag I can identify is Norway (I married a Norwegian once). All the flags are based on the Crusader's Cross and all are alike except for color variations of red and blue and white and gold. I never really was aware of this until seeing them all together.
The costumes are all red and blue and white and gold and black and have embroidery in contrasting colors. There is usually an apron involved for the women and almost everyone wears a vest of some kind. And quite often a hat or bonnet. And because the counties aren't very warm, they're very STURDY clothes, even the dress-up ones which is what you're seeing. Here's the Festival's photo album. Ah, I forgot the Vikings! These are easy to spot because their costumes involve horns. Some people dress up like trolls, too. We didn't see any.
The entertainment is dancing, singing and plays, an art show and craft demonstrations. But mostly dance. And because these countries are cold (I surmise), the dances are very lively. Then the heavy clothing and the extra layers of vests and aprons and hats. The day we were there it was 91 degrees. We felt very sorry for the dancers, but they still seemed to be having fun. And no one fell down from heat prostration. Usually the female dancers out-number the males dancers by a few, so some women have to dance the part of a man. Most of the time it looks easier than the woman's steps. There is almost constant dancing at the stages on either end of the festival which stretches up and down the street for about four blocks. Young people, old people, the really good young adults. It's quite a show.
The only live instrumental music we heard was a Celtic harp. Mostly because someone wanted to play it, I guess. I found nothing at the Festival or on the Web that associates this style of harp with Scandinavians, even using the broadest definition. It seems logistically possible, though. It's not very far from Norway to England, an easier trip for sea-farers than to Iceland. And the Vikings raided England all the time. I fear my memory of European History isn't very good. The music was pretty anyway.
The craft demonstrations covered lots of lace-making and spinning, broom-painting, egg-etching, can-enameling, glass-blowing, carving and woodworking (furniture, puppets, home decor), and something called rosemaling, which is a form of Norwegian decorative painting.
Then of course, you could buy all these items at the various craft booths. There also were booths that sold hot pepper plants, wheat art, clogs, yard decorations, t-shirts, of course, and those wonderful hair garlands made from dried straw flowers and ribbons. All the little girls and most of the big girls are wearing them and they look very cute. And you can buy odd non-Scandinavian things, like marshmallow shooters made out of PVC pipe. We bought one of these in Hood River a few years ago. It's a thing for kids and old guys who don't want to whittle, I guess. (Instructions for making your own. The comments on this site can be a little aggressive, but there are some great projects to do with kids, or by yourself for that matter.)
I spent the most time looking at the broom-painting booth and the Norwegian chip carvings. The broom handles are what's painted, not the broom, in narrow bands of bright, glossy color, very festive. Sorry there's not a picture. I didn't need a new broom, but the hammers, axes and screw drivers with painted handles appealed to me mightily. But I finally decided that my souvenir would be a carving. Norwegian chip carving is relief carving and the pieces can be very elaborate. Historically they were often made to give something beautiful to the local church -- a cross, a tray or  chalice, or a panel. In this case, though, the carver had a variety of simpler and more secular designs. As I was picking one out, I asked for his name and he said he was Einar Scovbo -- a Dane, not a Norwegian, but he did this style carving because he thought the old skills should be remembered and practiced. Anyway mine is not at all traditional, it is an almost stark portrayal of three dried seed heads on stems on a dark background, about 4" by 6", very nicely composed. Einar said he got the idea from looking at the weeds when he was hunting in Eastern Oregon. Einar is a very famous carver in the area and here's a picture of his hands.
All of this is great fun, but I suspect most people come for the food and drink. Lots of lemonade and snow cones in exotic flavors with free samples (pina colada, not too good), coffee, coffee, coffee, but no iced tea -- we asked everywhere and ended up with water. There's also a beer and wine garden, featuring Scandinavian beers and Northwest wines, but we didn't go there. The big food draw is many variations on fried or baked dough, There's abelskiver, which had the longest line -- little golf-ball-sized puffs, hollow inside that you eat with powdered sugar; waffles; fri-jos (a yeast-dough, called elephant ears in many places); rosettes (again deep fried, you dip a rosette form in batter and then in oil); cream puffs; cinnamon buns; Swedish pancakes. And, my favorite--Tippaleipa, Finnish Funnel Cake, also called Bird's Nest, and often attributed to the Pennsylvania Dutch (I don't THINK so, they don't even have a name except in English!). I didn't eat any this year because of the weight loss priority.
But I decided I could extend to some protein something. So the choice was sausages, steak sandwiches, Swedish potato sausage, smoked or pickled herring (not for me), chicken patties and cabbage and SWEDISH MEAT BALLS!!! Yeah!! I opted for the full meal, meatballs on flat bread, salad on a stick -- mostly radish and celery and olive and one cherry tomato, but a clever idea, served on two leaves of Romaine lettuce with a little cup of (maybe) ranch dressing, something creamy. The meat balls were wonderful, the sauce, however was straight sour cream. Nothing like my mother-in-law used to make. And a tad startling since I've switched to yogurt in every recipe that calls for sour cream. But the flat bread! Oh! No! I expected it to be lefse, that wonderful Norwegian potato pancake that is often eaten with butter and sugar, but also is an accompaniment to lutefisk or meatballs on the go. Our flat bread was clearly store-bought tortillas! Yuck. We didn't eat much of it.
A short final note on lutefisk. This is a Scandinavian dish they don't even TRY to foist off on the general public at this Festival. It's whitefish or cod prepared in lye. It swells up and gets gelatinous and awful (in my opinion). Often the fish sort of turns into soap -- lye? animal fat? duh, that's how you make soap. My sister has a great t-shirt that says, "Someone will have to sit up front with the lutefisk." She got it from a friend in North Dakota. We asked the t-shirt booth if they had such a shirt available, but they didn't and didn't seem to be interested in ordering them. I think we could sell a LOT at the Scandinavian Festival, but I'm not really looking for an entrepreneurial opportunity right now. Anyone may feel free to usurp the idea. (But Jeffi says she thinks it's copyrighted, so be careful.)
Well that's the end of this summer's Lane County stories. Maybe the John Day River area in September. Hope you are all having a pleasant summer. And everyone please send out your very best wishes to Belize at the beginning of the hurricane season.
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