From the mid-1800s to the beginning of the 20th century, America offered hope of a better life to millions of Swedish immigrants. The story of this mass immigration is told in a popular series of books written by Swedish author Vilhelm Moberg. The book follows a group of 13 Swedes as they make their thrilling journey across the Atlantic by ship, and then via America's waterways to Stillwater, Minnesota - the port of entry from which their new life would begin. So, due to this fascinating story of Swedish immigration, we chose Minnesota for our side trip during our visit to the states in 2006.
Our original goals in Minnesota were to visit the Swedish-American Institute in Minneapolis and the Minnesota Science Museum in St. Paul, but we counted on finding some other, smaller interesting things to do in the general vicinity. We purposefully chose a route that would allow us to spend one full day in Green Springs, Wisconsin in order to visit the truly unique museum, House on the Rock. I plan to write a story and upload a few pictures from that leg of the trip in a separate "Wisconsin" journal, so if you're interested, please check to see if I've had time to do it at the time you're reading this.
My Swedish husband wanted to make Stillwater our "base camp" for a couple of days, as a symbolic way to follow the footsteps of thousands of Swedes before him. Stillwater is a smaller, calmer, older community located on the banks of the Mississippi not far from the twin cities of St. Paul & Minniapolis, so it was the perfect choice for us. We arrived in Stillwater early in the evening, but to our disappointment there were no unique "mom and pop" hotels or motor lodges in old downtown Stillwater. So, we drove back on the highway and quickly found several chain motels and restaurants clustered around the next entry/exit ramps to Stillwater. We quickly settled into the motel and then took a short walk to a nearby chain restaurant for a late dinner, and chatted excitedly about what kind of interesting things the next day would bring.
The next day we drove to downtown Minneapolis in order to visit the Swedish-America Institute ( http://www.americanswedishinst.org/ ), the first of our sight-seeing goals. The Swedish-American Institute is a museum and cultural center housed in a turn-of-the-century mansion that was built for Swedish immigrants Swan and Christina Turnblad. The Turnblad's life as immigrants developed into the perfect rags-to-riches story, because Swan's hard work and interest in typesetting eventually landed him a prestigious career as manager of Minneapolis' Swedish newspaper, Svenska Amerikanska Posten.
Just inside the entrance to the institute there was a pleasant-looking older lady was sitting at a table taking the admittance fee and handing out maps and other information about the institute. Just for fun, we had agreed ahead of time to test how "Swedish" the institute was by speaking Swedish to the first "official" person we met. It was obvious, by the look on her face, that she was taken aback, but she quickly gathered her wits and greeted us in somewhat broken Swedish. We continued to speak Swedish with her, but we could see that it was becoming difficult for her, so we switched to English - to her great relief. She immediately started cheerfully chatting with us about the institute, about Sweden, and about her own Swedish background. She admitted that it was a real thrill to have "real" Swedish guests at the institute (although, it's only my husband who is the "real" Swede).
The Swedish-American Institute offers lots of interesting pictures, stories, household items, musical instruments, and actual recordings concerning life in Sweden, as well as how it was for Swedish immigrants in the mid-1800s. There is a schedule of touring exhibits about all things Swedish - artwork, design, research, poetry, and even queen Silvia's beautiful ball gowns (June-September 2008). There are, of course, authentic Swedish goods for sale at the gift shop. We spent about 2 hours at the Swedish-American Institute, and it was a very pleasant visit. After visiting the institute, we rambled around downtown Minneapolis the rest of the afternoon, enjoying a nice lunch and then doing a bit of shopping and people-watching.
The next day we drove to St. Paul in order to visit the Science Museum of Minnesota ( http://www.smm.org/ ). The thing that drew us to this museum was a fascinating special exhibit called Body World ( http://www.bodyworlds.com/en.html ). The exhibit was both gruesome and captivating, and apparently somewhat controversial. We could tell by overhearing the conversations between other visitors that there were several students of medicine - doctors, nurses, radiologists, etc., who were among the visitors. There were hundreds of big and small displays, ranging from separate organs and bones to whole "skinned" bodies showing the structure of muscles, nerves, and bones. All these human bodies were preserved by a very unique process that felt like rubber. It's fascinating stuff to the non-squeamish! Besides the Body Worlds exhibit, we enjoyed lots of other, interesting, inter-active displays. We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the museum, but I must admit that one of the funniest things happened in the museum's parking lot after we left the museum....
You see, the parking structure at the museum consists of about 8 levels. Upon entering from the street level, you first descend down a long ramp, then you start circling up the ramp as you search for an available spot. We ended up parking on the 4th or 5th level...we thought. Feeling sporty and a bit too proud to take the elevator down to the entrance of the museum, we decided to run down the stairwell instead. But, at the end of the long day at the museum, our tired feet and aching backs made us swallow our pride and take the elevator to the car. We stepped out at level 5 and confidently walked to the area where we left the car. Oddly, our car wasn't there. O.K...no problem. We ran down the stairs to level 4, and walked directly to where we thought our car was parked....but the car wasn't there! So, we got back on the elevator and rode up to level 6. You guessed it - no car. We started to panic with the thought that our rented car had been stolen! Then we suddenly remembered a special feature the rental car had. Upon pressing a paticular button on the automatic lock device, the car would toot its horn 3 times, as if to say "I'm over here!" So, we rode the elevator to each level, pressing the button each time until we heard, to our great relief, the 3-toot signal from our rental car. We burst out in laughter and happily ran to the car to begin the next leg of our Minnesota trip. Since that day, we've gotten plenty of laughs both telling and remembering this story!
Next story about Minnesota: Old Man River
Interesting reading about Swedish immigration:
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/history/mnstatehistory/swedish_migration.html
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