Livsreise - Life's Journey

Events

Arna Rennan presenting “Scandinavian Music- Deep Roots and New Shoots”

Livsreise is excited to have Arna Rennan as our featured speaker in September -especially since she will be sharing highlights of her summer in Scandinavia! In her presentation Arna will be presenting comparisons between folk traditions in the Midwest and current trends in the Scandinavian Countries Arna Rennan hosts the program “Nordic Roots Music” at KTWH Two Harbors, […]

Free

“Stavkirke-The Story of Washington Island’s Norwegian Replica”

Livsreise 277 W. Main Street, Stoughton, WI, United States

Seemingly dropped in place right from medieval Norway, the traditional wooden stave church belonging to Wisconsin’s Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church was built on Washington Island to honor the area’s Scandinavian heritage. The foundation for the Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church’s stave church (modeled after a church in Borgun, Norway) was built in 1991 and completed three […]

FREE

“The Scow Schooner-Lifeblood of Immigrant Families and Coastal Communities”

In the 1860s, commerce shifted in the Great Lakes. Railroads had penetrated the West and cut into the profitable freight businesses.  The most dramatic and far-reaching consequence of the lean years of the late 1850s and early 1860s was the introduction of the "consort system," and the development of specialized bulk freight carriers.  Enormous quantities of […]

FREE

“Where did you come from before you were Norwegian?.”

Livsreise 277 W. Main Street, Stoughton, WI, United States

So you are a proud Norwegian. You may have traced your family back 2-3 generations back to the family farm in Norway . But where did your family live before that- when half or Europe was covered in ice.? Where did you come from? Our speaker, Craig Gjerde, will lead us back about two million […]

FREE

“The Making of Pioneer Wisconsin; Voices of Early Settlers.”

Livsreise 277 W. Main Street, Stoughton, WI, United States

Norwegians were the earliest and most numerous of the Scandinavian peoples to settle in Wisconsin. In 1840, there were already two sizable communities, Rock Prairie and Jefferson Prairie, in Rock County. About the same time, 40 Norwegian families from Upper Telemarken district settled near Lake Muskego in Waukesha County, and the following year, the largest […]

FREE