Crossings and Connections
Last fall, Annie McMullen ’27 took a course titled Norwegian Immigration to Minnesota that provided valuable insight into what led a group of Norwegian-American pastors and farmers to found St. Olaf College 150 years ago. This January, she had the opportunity to learn what drove that immigration in a completely different way: by traveling to Norway as part of a course titled The Journey North: Migrations To, From, and Within Norway.
Led by Professor of Norwegian Kari Lie Dorer and Associate Professor of Norwegian Tanya Thresher, the study-abroad course coincided not only with the St. Olaf Sesquicentennial, but also with the bicentennial of Norwegian migration to the United States.
Students taking the course strolled through picturesque Norwegian cities, traveled to see fjords, stood beneath a night sky streaked with Northern Lights, and had the opportunity to spend time with a herd of reindeer raised by the Sámi indigenous community. They also learned about the country’s complex history and sampled traditional Norwegian cuisine.
Yet as they got a first-hand glimpse of the stunning beauty and traditions of Norway, they also learned and reflected on what pushes a person to leave their country and what pulls them to another. It provided a deeper understanding of the questions that many Norwegians grappled with 200 years ago, and the decisions some ultimately made to leave their homeland and start a new life in America.
“The opportunity to actually visit Norway enhanced my knowledge more than I could have ever imagined,” McMullen says.
The first Norwegian-Americans, like most immigrants, sought opportunities that were lacking in their home country at the time: economic stability, land ownership, and religious freedom. A group of these immigrant pastors, farmers, and businessmen in Rice, Dakota, and Goodhue counties, under the leadership of the Rev. Bernt Julius Muus, the Rev. N.A. Quammen, and Northfield banker Harald Thorson, laid the groundwork for the college’s founding in 1874. The purpose of the school, then as now, was to offer a program of liberal arts studies to both young men and women preparing for careers in business, education, medicine, the clergy, and other professions.
For Maren Miller ’27, participating in this J-Term course not only brought St. Olaf’s history to life, but her own family’s history as well. Her family members were some of the first Norwegians to immigrate to America in the 1800s, and they did so as Sloopers, a term used to describe the 52 Norwegians who traveled to the United States in 1825 aboard the sloop Restauration. Participating in this study-abroad class this year — at the moment the U.S. and Norway begin commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Sloopers crossing the Atlantic — was a powerful experience for Miller. She especially appreciated the opportunity to visit Stavanger, where the first group of Norwegians left for North America in 1825 and where some of her family members are still living.
“I finally understood the full picture of where they came from and why they left. This trip also made me realize why my family decided to go to St. Olaf very early on: to keep their community and heritage alive in a new and foreign land,” Miller says. “My experience on this trip made my Norwegian origins — and the Norwegian origins of St. Olaf — more definitive and real to me.”
Many of the students in the course didn’t have any personal connections to Norway, but they appreciated the opportunity to better understand the issues and forces that drove immigration 200 years ago — and how it’s relevant to immigration today.
“I chose this program because I am very interested in the foundations and legacy of St. Olaf,” says Roxi Wessel ’26, who majors in history and political science. “I also wanted to learn more about the movement of people across borders, and especially about how cyclical patterns of migration are disrupted by the creation of borders.”
Dorer says that the course prompted students to reflect about the factors that drive migration. During a three-day role playing exercise, for example, students took the role of an 1830s Norwegian trying to decide if they were going to stay in Norway or migrate to the United States. They had to research and play their character, followed by a lengthy debrief with the class about their decisions.
“It was impactful because it forced students to go from talking about a topic to having them experience it on a much deeper level,” Dorer says.
As part of the class, students read numerous accounts of people’s personal journeys, from historic to contemporary. The course then challenged them to think about their own personal journey and the hopes and fears they’re facing as they embark on their next journey — a career after college life.
“In our very final discussion with students, we asked what it was about migration that they will take back with them to campus,” she says. “The examples varied greatly, but it was clear that the personal narratives of the individuals we studied humanized the topic of migration.”
The J-Term class that Dorer led followed two Alumni and Family Travel programs to Norway that the college hosted last August. The 10-day trip first took participants to Stavanger — where they visited a replica of the Restauration that brought the first migrants to the United States — and continued to various destinations that both emphasized migration as it happened within Norway and explored the history of St. Olaf College and its founders.
“There are a lot of great ways to see Norway, but we wanted participants to see it through the lens of migration,” says Norwegian American Historical Association (NAHA) Executive Director Amy Boxrud ’89, who led the Alumni and Family Travel program alongside Dorer. “When we got to the Snåsa area, we were able to weave in the St. Olaf story as well.”
The experiential learning that characterizes Alumni and Family Travel programs in many ways mirror the study-abroad experiences that many participants had during their time at St. Olaf.
“As a senior, I went on the Global Semester, and that experience was my most impactful and memorable St. Olaf memory,” says Paul Rondestvedt ’88, a fourth-generation Ole who participated in the trip to Norway. “Knowing that the students were able to immerse themselves amongst the people and places of Norway and embrace the cultural nuances reminded me of my Global experience.”
Both the J-Term study-abroad course and the Alumni and Family Travel groups were able to visit many of the same important destinations related to Norwegian migration history.
“Both experiences were a way in which the Norwegian Department sought to engage the college community with the 200-year commemoration of Norwegian migration to the U.S.,” Dorer says. “The tours went to mostly the same stops stemming from the same content, but the Alumni and Family Travel program was just a taste of what the J-Term course was. We really got the opportunity to dig into migration much more meaningfully over the course of a month.”
Marking the Moment with Music
The St. Olaf Orchestra, conducted by Chung Park, will tour Norway May 26–June 10, 2025. The tour will honor both the 200th anniversary of Norwegian migration and the 150th anniversary of the founding of St. Olaf. It is officially part of the Crossings 200 slate of events that will be presented by organizations across Norway and North America.
The St. Olaf Orchestra will present six concerts at iconic venues in Oslo, Larvik, Hamar, Bergen, Nordfjordeid, and Trondheim. The Oslo Chamber Choir, an award-winning ensemble known for its extensive training in Norwegian folk repertoire, will open three of the concerts on the St. Olaf Orchestra’s tour. Students in the orchestra will also have the opportunity to explore the country’s western fjords, perform in the stunning Trondheim Cathedral, visit composer Edvard Grieg’s historical home, and more.
Inviting audiences to experience the magic of music that transcends borders and generations is something that St. Olaf music ensembles have been doing for decades. All three of St. Olaf College’s premier music ensembles — the St. Olaf Band, St. Olaf Choir, and St. Olaf Orchestra — have regularly toured Norway, beginning with the St. Olaf Band in 1906. The St. Olaf Choir first toured Norway in 1913 and returned in 2019 for its eighth visit. The St. Olaf Orchestra has previously visited in 1967, 1971, 1979, 2005, and 2019.
A St. Olaf Alumni and Family Travel program will tour Norway at the same time as the St. Olaf Orchestra. The Best of Norway During St. Olaf’s 150th Anniversary Year, led by Associate Professor of Art and Art History Peter Nelson ’04 and Flaten Art Museum Director Jane Becker Nelson ’04, will take Oles and friends of the college on a journey throughout the country from May 26–June 8. The program’s itinerary includes two St. Olaf Orchestra concerts: one at the beginning of the tour in Oslo, and the other at the end of our tour in Trondheim.
A Conference to Commemorate Centuries of Connections
The Norwegian American Historical Association (NAHA) and the St. Olaf Norwegian Department will host a conference on campus June 18-22 to commemorate 200 years of Norwegian migration to and from North America. The conference, titled “Crossings and Connections,” will feature talks by scholars and researchers of Norwegian migration from both sides of the Atlantic. The conference is open to the public, and there will be opportunities for attendees to enjoy Norwegian-American music, dance, historic sites, a film festival, and more. In addition to NAHA and the Norwegian Department, conference organizers are the Norwegian Teachers and Researchers Association of North America (NORTANA, which St. Olaf Professor of Norwegian Kari Lie Dorer currently leads as its president), and the Norwegian-American Historical Association–Norway (NAHA-Norge).
And in yet another convergence of anniversaries, the conference will mark the centennial of NAHA, which serves as an international hub for Norwegian-American history and research. An independent nonprofit organization that is housed on St. Olaf’s campus, NAHA was founded in 1925 by St. Olaf Professor of Norwegian Ole Rølvaag, historian Theodore Blegen, and other visionaries in the Norwegian American community.
Today NAHA cares for the largest archive of Norwegian-American life, maintains a robust publishing program, and hosts programs, tours, and events for its more than 1,000 members and the public. Its collection of manuscripts, diaries, photographs, legal documents, and other records, housed in Rølvaag Memorial Library, is an invaluable resource for both scholarly research and family history.
“We’re grateful for our century-long relationship with St. Olaf,” says Norwegian-American Historical Association (NAHA) Executive Director Amy Boxrud ’89. “It’s been critical to the longevity and success of NAHA.”
For more information about the conference, visit pages.stolaf.edu/cc2025.
