Articles

Scandinavian Press

Spring 2019

Swedish American leadership decided the best way to preserve their heritage is to let their youth experience it for themselves. All it takes is organization, passion, and money.

Scandinavian Press

Spring 2019

What better way to preserve Swedish American culture than by creating the next generation of influencers through exposure to the Nobel experience?

Scandinavian Press

Winter 2018

Maud was born for adventure and glory on the high seas, but her life quickly turned into a Cinderella story gone wrong. No wallflower sailing vessel, she was sturdy, built to last in the toughest of assignments, riding Arctic currents, locked into place and at the mercy of shifting ice floes at the top of the world in the pursuit of science. She was a dream ship, a queen of the Arctic.

Scandinavian Press

Winter 2018

Victors in military conflicts would divide the spoils by redrawing lines on a map. And maps are redrawn by nature as volcanic eruptions create new islands, and global warming and cooling changes coastlines. Maps help us understand history, as names and places appear, change, and disappear. We map the air, water, and land on this planet; we map the stars…we map history.

Scandinavian Press

Winter 2018

The William Rolland Gallery of Fine Art, possibly the country’s only dedicated art gallery housed inside a stadium, opened to the public on Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011, on the Thousand Oaks campus of California Lutheran University. The 2200 square foot museum combines art and athletics under one roof, as a reflection of the broad experience that CLU provides to students as a liberal arts university.

Scandinavian Press

Fall 2018

The story of a brief period in history when the members of one Swedish family sat on the thrones of three empires simultaneously, and controlled territory from the Arctic Circle to the Black Sea and from Germany to Moscow, and how it all fell apart because they couldn’t agree on religion. These events are essential to understanding the map of Europe today.

Scandinavian Press

Fall 2018

The 65-year struggle of a Finnish-American philanthropic organization to unite multiple generations of Finnish culture, to preserve their values and showcase their talents. With 58 chapters in the U.S., this is a great place to begin to understand Finnish-American achievements, interests, events and festivals.

Scandinavian Press

Fall 2018

Minnesota’s Soiva Music Camp is a story of dedication, persistence, and private charity overcoming adversity and failure to create an international incubator of musical talent for young people. Meet the amazing Dennis Anderson and Melodee Bahr at the heart of it all.

Scandinavian Press

Summer 2018

The passionate hatred two of Scandinavia’s most famous playwrights had for each other. The sources of their enmity? Envy and women. A tale for our time.

Scandinavian Press

Summer 2018

What were the Danes doing in the Caribbean? Why did they sell their island possessions to the U.S. and why did the U.S. want them? A story of slavery, revolution, and Nazi submarine warfare in the western hemisphere. Read the back story before taking the cruise!

Barefoot Writer

March 2018

John Bechtel is asked questions about his lifestyle and writers’ craft in a magazine exclusively for writers.

Scandinavian Press

Spring 2018

Trace the history of Arctic architecture from the vernacular igloo to Finland’s luxurious, high-tech glass houses…

Scandinavian Press

Spring 2018

Sweden’s bad luck writer: How his books sold 80 million copies but he died stressed out and poor…

Scandinavian Press

Spring 2018

Why three brothers, a small village in Norway, and a former wind surfing world champion are rescuing a sunken ship…

Scandinavian Press

Fall 2017

The world is full of interesting, beautiful, even jaw-dropping destinations, more than anyone could cram into a lifetime to see. But travel itself is often stressful and tiring. There are lines everywhere, in the airports, bus stations, and even at the destinations themselves. It is necessary at times to remind yourself to breathe deeply, let your shoulders relax, and remind yourself why you are doing this…

Scandinavian Press

Fall 2017

It has been said that you can’t communicate Finnishness in the English language. But we’re going to try. Who or what is a Finn, and why? The Finns are different, even among Scandinavians. Let’s begin by seeing what we can learn from the land itself, and perhaps then learn what we can about the landscape, meaning in an enlarged sense, the relationship between the land and its people…

Scandinavian Press

Fall 2017

Please meet Eva Kiviranta from Visit Finland, our 29-year-old tour guide to romantic Finland. Eva loves her country and she makes a case hat it is a great place to fall in love, and possibly even a better place to celebrate anniversaries because of its closeness to nature, its lack of pretensions, the laid-back nature of its people, and of course, the sauna…

Scandinavian Press

Summer 2017

The story of the Sydney Opera House is not the only example of high drama in the high arts. The people of Iceland are living through an architectural saga of their own in the form of Harpa, their new state-of-the-art hybrid opera house and conference center in Reykjavik. But there are some notable differences from the Sydney experience…

Spring 2017

Scandinavian Press

There is no way pedestrians who turn the corner of Avenida Cordoba onto Riobamba in a quiet residential neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina, could be prepared for what is about to confront them. Larger than any embassy, each side of the building almost the length of a football field, taking up an entire city block, surrounded by an 8-foot- (2.4 meter) high green iron fencing encompassing immaculate but shallow lawns and gardens, massive doors…

Scandinavian Press

Winter 2016

Greenland’s got buzz. Greenlanders are well along on the road to self-determination politically. Their culture is gaining global recognition, and just this year Greenland was named a Lonely Planet Top 10 Best in Travel Destination!

It may one day be the first nation-state with an Inuit majority, and if so, it may also have achieved that status because of climate change.

Winter 2016

Laura Ryhänen and Mikko Kuisma left Finland 20 years ago and have been a couple for twelve years, and they say theirs is a tango story. Their group, music, and compositions, billedas UUSIKUU Finnish Tango which translates as “New Moon”) revisits and reinterprets the traditional Finnish tango of the 1930s to 1960s and adapts it to current tastes and changing generational mores. The following is from a Skype interview with them in their home in Oxford, England.

Scandinavian Press

Winter 2016

This compendium of 22 essays was published in 2008 and appears to be part of the revival of academic interest in the subject of landscape as being far more than interesting scenery as perceived by the visitor or as portrayed by an artist. The essays are loosely knit together by this theme of landscape as identity, belonging, time and place. Its contents therefore may be of interest to many of our distinguished readers, especially if you enjoyed…

Scandinavian Press

Fall 2016

Great ships of historical significance do not always come to a dignified end. Often planned and constructed with great enthusiasm and care, many came to rest at the bottom of the waterways they plied, often accompanied by the bodies of the unfortunate sailors who went down with them. Battered and badly damaged ships of some explorers limped to the nearest port where they were greeted with wild celebration and popular acclaim…

Scandinavian Press

Fall 2016

Knud Rasmussen’s story rivals that of the greatest characters in fiction. He was a cross-cultural hybrid of a Danish missionary father, one of those sent to help solidify Denmark’s territorial claim to the world’s largest island, and a one-fourth Inuit mother. Knud played with Inuit friends, spoke the native language, and was totally integrated as a child in their primitive culture. He learned to hunt, drive dog sleds, and survival skills…

Scandinavian Press

Summer 2016

After 400 years of trying to find a Northwest Passage across the Far North of the North American continent, it took Roald Amundsen three years on the small ship Gjoa to make his passage, and many of the waterways he chose were too shallow to carry commercial ships. By contrast, a century later it took another Norse seafarer, Finnish Captain Matti Westerlund of the MSV Nordica, just 15 days to travel 4,000 deep-channel-miles from Dutch Harbor in Alaska to the city of Nuuk in Greenland from October 16, 2015 to October 31, 2015. In their corporate press release about the achievement of their ships Nordica and Fennica, the Finnish company Arctia, in typical Nordic understatement, laconically summarizes a millennium of trial, effort, and countless tragedies attempting to prove the existence of, and successful crossing of the almost mythical Northwest Passage: “ . . .

Scandinavian Press

Summer 2016

At 38 years of age, René Redzepi is the leading influence in global gastronomy and the culinary arts. He is also an accidental chef. When he was finishing ninth grade, his homeroom teacher informed him there was no point in continuing in an academic curriculum and encouraged him to switch to a vocational school and begin an apprenticeship in the trades. He chose culinary school for the same reason many teenagers join the army or go in a particular direction that changes their life forever—a close friend was going to culinary school, so he would, too. . .

Broadway World.com

March 20, 2016

Forty-year veteran Broadway performing artists Jimmy Ferraro and Dee Etta Rowe have done it all, from leading roles in National Broadway Tours and thousands of performances all over the country, to having produced and directed over 100 performances both here in New Port Richey, Florida and on tour.

Scandinavian Press

Spring 2016

For hundreds of years the Northwest Passage was the stuff of legend, passionately believed but never verified. Incredibly, the story begins with a family of adventurers and merchants, the greatest of which was Marco Polo, the godfather of travel writing as we know it today. Marco’s overland trip on the ancient Silk Road took him from Venice to Beijing, China, then known as Cathay.  His trip there, his stay and his return took a total of 26 years, from 1271 to 1295 CE.

Scandinavian Press

Winter 2015

SP I noticed from your resume that about 25 years ago you were a journalist for a Norwegian financial newspaper. What prompted you to switch careers to the foreign service? Mr. Øyslebø I saw an opportunity to explore other countries from the inside, and to see my own country from a different perspective. Only by first understanding how you are perceived by others is it possible to have a successful interaction with them. Understand them first in order to be understood. SP We are focusing in this issue on all things Arctic. With reference to Norway…

Scandinavian Press

Winter 2015

Aleksi Härkönen is an affable but serious man with a wry sense of humor that takes you by surprise when you are least expecting it. I decided after the first ten minutes that Aleksi would make a great next door neighbor, and that is exactly what he promotes: good neighbor relations in the far north. He represents both his own country and the entire European Union with regard to all things Arctic, and that is particularly significant because in a little over a year from now, Finland will assume the chairmanship of the Arctic Council from the U.S. Mr. Härkönen…

September 2, 2015

All restaurant stories are above all else, people stories, the people who own and staff these businesses, and the patrons who frequent them. Every restaurant owner wants you to be a traveler, an adventurer and a risk taker. Because if you are not these things, you will never venture inside the doors of a new establishment, and at one time or another every restaurant had a beginning, and every patron had to be teased or enticed to enter. The first patrons are the modern culinary equivalent of the early nomads. The restaurant patrons who like…

August 19, 2015

Is bigger always better? Does a business or institution get better by being bigger? This question can include virtually any organized endeavor, from a pizza parlor, a family restaurant, a gas station, a hospital or even government. The answer depends on the vision and purpose of the founders, opportunities in the markets it seeks to serve and the ego needs of the major players at any given point in time. The second law of thermodynamics dictates growth or death, but growth without adequate attention to core values, discipline and teamwork can…

July 8, 2014

These days the word exceptionalism is used in the context of election year sloganeering and vote mongering, especially patriotic appeals to “American exceptionalism.” I find such generalizations banal and silly. Ask me what I think about an individual, American or anything else, and I might have an opinion about his or her exceptionalism and in what specific ways I might view them as exceptional. Or not. The same is true of our restaurant experiences. Broad generalizations are rarely accurate or even helpful. It can be educational to read restaurant reviews…

June 24, 2015

Where do vegetarians eat? That is the question I posed to Braina Patel Shah, who with her husband Rahil owns and operates City Laundry at 2505 N. Broadway in Minot. You may have met them,because to the best of my knowledge, City Laundry is the only laundry and dry cleaning service in town. Braina and Rahil are first generation immigrants, something most of us can only say about our grandparents or great grandparents at best. The Shahs are from Gujarat, one of India’s 29 states (and seven territories). As a frame of reference, the U.S. has 50 states…

May 27, 2015

Tombstone, Ariz., is a boom town founded in 1879 because of the discovery of silver in the area. Within seven years the town burgeoned from a population of 100 to over 14,000. Besides a school, four churches and three newspapers, it   asted 110 saloons and 14 gambling halls, a theater, and— not to be overlooked—an opera house. If the name of the place sounds vaguely familiar to you, it was the location of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral featuring the Earp brothers versus the bad guys. Maybe you’ve seen  the movie. Sometime thereafter…

May 13, 2015

After months of trying, I finally succeeded in making the acquaintance of the owner of the Thai restaurant, Baan Rao, located at the southwest corner of the Walmart Plaza. Her name is Walaya, and she was worth the wait. Walaya came to America in 2002 with her sister Pat, who is an oncologist at Trinity Health. As is common with Thai names, their family name is quite long by American standards, with 16 letters. It is my understanding that for Thai of Chinese descent, the lengthy surnames are an attempt to translate Chinese names into Thai equivalents…

April 15, 2015

Jutta Schmidt, Minot resident and 32-year veteran healthcare worker at Trinity Hospital, is leading a clinic April 25 to introduce North Dakotans to the sport of endurance horseback riding. Even though this sport is at least 50 years old in the U.S., Schmidt says it is relatively unknown in North Dakota. She, and an avid group of other practitioners, mostly women, intend to change that. Endurance riding as a sport is somewhere between trail riding and the Kentucky Derby. There is competition to win each race, but…

April 15, 2015

The Walrus is a popular local eatery snuggled into a non-descript strip plaza two blocks from the governor’s mansion in our state capital. The exact address if you want to GPS your way there is 1136 3rd St., Bismarck, ND 58501. It is easy to find if you are driving directly into Bismarck from Minot: Follow 83S across I-94, where it turns into State Street. Follow State Street around the Capitol Square, keeping to your right, at which point State Street turns into E. Boulevard Avenue. Continue on E. Boulevard Avenue to N. 3rd Street, turn right and…

March/April 2015

Leyla Javadov, a youthful-looking woman with an unassuming and engaging smile, is the co-owner and chef of Café 21, a new hot spot that opened in April 2014 in the Gaslamp District of San Diego. As you enter Café 21 a profusion of green plants seems to sprout from the brick walls, alternating with glass shelves containing hand-labeled bottles of crafted vodka, gin, rum and bourbon concoctions. A row of glass wine jugs infused with lavender, sage and a dozen other herbs evoke your curiosity as you wait to be seated. Raised in the Ukraine…

March 18, 2015

As a matter of fact, there isn’t one single franchise unit of Montana Mike’s in the state of Montana. There’s only one in all of North Dakota, here in Minot, at 3816 S. Broadway, in front of Walmart. A creation of a group called the Stockade Companies, which began with a single restaurant in Oklahoma City in 1966, 80 restaurants are now in operation in nine states and Mexico out of Round Rock, Texas. Twenty-eight of these restaurants are Montana Mike’s, with plans on the books for two more this year — but not in North Dakota. Along with the name…

February 11, 2015

This agreeable restaurant located at 1400 31st Ave. SW can be a little hard to find if you haven’t already been a guest there. If you are relatively new to town, it helps to know that in Minot, streets run north and south (the air force base to the north, Bismarck to the south); and the avenues run east and west. Main Street is the north/south axis (although I think it would make more sense for Broadway to serve this purpose — you could live in Minot for a year without ever knowing where Main Street is), and Central Avenue is the east-west axis…

January 21, 2015

The Schatz story is a tale of two cities and one family with vision and grit. It began here in Minot in the early 70’s. Danny Schatz was a young man who seemed to have it made. Handsome, charismatic, a regular at rodeo bulldogging competitions (that’s when you jump from a horse onto a steer and wrestle it to the ground by twisting its horns, in case you’ve never tried it); he and his brother were nicknamed the “Marlboro men” by their admirers. As if that wasn’t enough, Danny had a job to die for with the railroad as an electrician, with great pay…

January 7, 2015

Eating can be a habit, an obsession, an adventure, a chore or a bore. Most of us at one time or another have eaten a meal and a half hour later can’t remember what we ate and certainly not how it tasted. It was not something we savored or lingered over. We ate because it was that time of day, or we ate so we could feel full again or because our family or friends were eating. We were not thinking about our food when we were chewing it. Our minds were somewhere else. We dine out for social reasons, to be with friends, to save time on preparation…

November 23, 2014

North Dakota has always been famous for its dirt. It has exceptionally fertile soil and has long been one of the bread baskets of the country, if not the world. It has been common knowledge for decades that North Dakota has oil trapped deep in its shale, but it has only been in the last decade that technology made extraction of that oil economically feasible. Then there’s the coal: North Dakota has the second largest lignite reserves in the world, second only to Australia, which is enough lignite near the surface of the ground to meet all North Dakota’s energy needs…