Book Description
When his father developed Alzheimer’s disease, Don Lago realized that the stories and traditions of his Swedish ancestors would be lost along with the rest of his father’s memories. Haunted by this inevitable tragedy, Lago set out to fight back against forgetting by researching and reclaiming his long-lost Scandinavian roots. Beginning his quest with a visit to his ancestral home of Gränna, Sweden, Lago explores all facets of Scandinavian America—Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Icelandic—along the way. He encounters Icelanders living in the Utah desert, a Titanic victim buried beneath a gigantic Swedish coffeepot in Iowa, an Arkansas town named after the famous Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, a real-life Legoland in southern California, and other unique remnants of America’s Scandinavian past. Visits to Sigurd Olson’s legendary cabin on the banks of Burntside Lake in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and Carl Sandburg’s birthplace in Galesburg, Illinois, further provide Lago with an acute sense of the Scandinavian values that so greatly influenced, and continue to influence, American society. More than just a travel memoir, On the Viking Trail places Scandinavian immigrants and their history within the wider sweep of American culture. Lago’s perceptive eye and amusing tales remind readers of all ethnic backgrounds that to truly appreciate America one must never forget its immigrant past.
About the Author
Don Lago has been a political activist, book reviewer, kayaking instructor, researcher, and author. His essays on nature, science, and history have appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including Orion, Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, Smithsonian, Science Digest, and the Antioch Review. He currently lives in a cabin nestled in the pine forest outside Flagstaff, Arizona.
On the Viking Trail: Travels in Scandinavian America FROM THE PUBLISHER
When his father developed Alzheimer's disease, Don Lago realized that the stories and traditions of his Swedish ancestors would be lost along with the rest of his father's memories. Haunted by this inevitable tragedy, Lago set out to fight back against forgetting by researching and reclaiming his long-lost Scandinavian roots.
Beginning his quest with a visit to his ancestral home of Granna, Sweden, Lago explores all facets of Scandinavian America—Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Icelandic—along the way. He encounters Icelanders living in the Utah desert, a Titanic victim buried beneath a gigantic Swedish coffee pot in Iowa, an Arkansas town named after the famous Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, a real-life Legoland in southern California, and other unique remnants of America's Scandinavian past. Visits to Sigurd Olson's legendary cabin on the banks of Burntside Lake in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and Carl Sandburg's birthplace in Galesburg, Illinois, further provide Lago with an acute sense of the Scandinavian values that so greatly influenced, and continue to influence, American society.
More than just a travel memoir, On the Viking Trail places Scandinavian immigrants and their history within the wider sweep of American culture. Lago's perceptive eye and amusing tales remind readers of all ethnic backgrounds that to truly appreciate America one must never forget its immigrant past.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Prompted by his father's Alzheimer's disease, Lago was inspired to track down his long-lost Scandinavian roots and thereby preserve a sense of his heritage. In this, his first full-length work (he has previously contributed articles to the Smithsonian and Science Digest), he reports on his travels throughout the United States and Scandinavia to explore Scandinavian influence on American politics, society, and culture. There are profiles of icons like Charles Lindbergh and Jenny Lind, prominent Scandinavians such as Wallace Stegner and the architect Eliel Saarinen, and public figures, including politician Walter Mondale and journalist Eric Sevareid. Less famous Scandinavians are also included: Gunnar Widforss, a Grand Canyon landscape painter; Robert Asp, builder of a replica of a Viking ship, which he sailed through the Great Lakes and across the Atlantic to Norway; and other colorful figures. Lago's ethnic pride is heartfelt, but he tends to make generalizations and some fairly fantastic claims with few or no supporting facts (e.g., that Mark Twain's novels had a Scandinavian influence or that Target Corporation's practice of supporting local charitable organizations is directly related to its company headquarters' location in Minnesota, "the most Scandinavian of states"). This lapse in scholarly discipline may not matter to his target audience, however. For public libraries where there is a strong interest in Scandinavian American history.-Rita Simmons, Sterling Heights P.L., MI Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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