Last night I had the privilege of speaking at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul Minnesota. It is the home of the Minnesota Historical Society. While I was researching for my book Myths of the Rune Stone Viking Martyrs and the Birthplace of America, I spent many days here reading newspaper microfilm and scores of other historical documents. The event had been scheduled to take place in a smaller seminar room, but they had to move it to the main auditorium because of the crowd (167 in attendance!) I think that Mike Mullen’s recent article in the Minneapolis City Pages generated a lot of interest. Many thanks to Danielle Dart, coordinator of public programs for lifelong learners, for making this event possible. You can listen to the podcast above.
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Although I have given numerous presentations on the book since its release last October, I made a special effort to locate the Kensington Rune Stone story in the long history of the American obsession with pre-Columbian Vikings in North America. Although we didn’t have credible evidence of a Norse presence in North America until the discovery of Newfoundland’s L’Anse aux Meadows archaeological site in 1960, some white Americans went to great lengths to prove Vikings reached as far south as Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and even as far west as Minnesota. They used this American “pre-history” to address anxieties related to the nation’s growing racial diversity and the troubled way that white Americans came to terms with living on land once occupied by someone else. The Kensington Rune Stone must be understood within this context. Additionally, my talk addressed the question of the artifact’s authenticity and the status of science literacy in American culture today. Information on Mike Scholtz’s documentary film Lost Conquest can be found here. CORRECTION: I mistakenly described Tom Trow as a geologist. He is actually an archaeologist. A link to his article debunking Holand’s rune stone theory can be found here.
I also include a short video below. A young woman posed a question about myths. She joked that her grandmother was very excited about her coming to see my presentation until she heard the title. She asked about how people cope when they learn that their myths are proven to be false. Here’s my answer…
Did Viking reach what is now Minnesota prior to the explorations of Christopher Columbus in 1492? We know for certain that Vikings did indeed spend time in North America around the year 1000. An archaeological site unearthed at L’Anse Aux Meadows in Canada’s province of Newfoundland is proof. However, scores of Midwestern Americans have claimed that Vikings didn’t stop there. They assert that an inscribed artifact known as the Kensington Rune Stone proves that Scandinavians had reached the heart of the continent by 1362.
Although most professional geologists, linguists, and historians have concluded that the runic inscription is most likely a product of the nineteenth century, many Minnesotans have persisted in this belief. The faithful have frequently been portrayed by journalists, scholars, and filmmakers in a pejorative light. In the 1970s, a British TV producer, Brian Branston, spent time in Minnesota researching the popular enthusiasm for the Kensington Rune Stone. Here’s how he described believers in the artifact’s authenticity:
Those who believe it bogus rest their case on the arguments of reputable scholars, particularly linguists and runologists who are practically unanimous in declaring the inscription a hoax. Those who believe in the genuineness of the inscription hold on to their beliefs much as one would hold to a religious faith. You cannot reason with faith.
Is belief in something that contradicts scientific evidence inherently irrational? This is a question that scholars of religion have long debated. Some, like Sigmund Freud, considered religious belief to be the product of neurosis. However, to write off people’s beliefs as nothing more than mental illness obscures more than it reveals. To do so is to miss the opportunity to understand how beliefs function for the persons who hold them. As another scholar, Daniéle Hervieu Léger, has observed, science does not always satisfy “the human need for assurance, which is at the source of the search to make life intelligible and which constantly evokes questions of why.”
Earlier this year, when my book Myths of the Rune Stone was in the final stages of production, I came across a Facebook page associated with a new documentary film called “Lost Conquest.” The film opens with the statement, “One thousand years ago, Vikings visited Minnesota. Or Not. It kind of depends on who you ask.” I was delighted to find out that another Minnesota native, Mike Scholtz, had seriously considered the meaning of the popular enthusiasm for Viking origin myths.
Mike’s film Lost Conquest highlights several colorful characters offering perspective on the question of whether or not Viking visitors explored what would one day become Minnesota. One Viking researcher clearly relished his role as a non-conformist thinker who questioned mainstream beliefs about American history. When asked why scholars did not embrace his theory that Vikings visited Minnesota, he declares that they were probably threatened because “That kind of leaves old Columbo [sic] out of the picture!” Another enthusiast who manages a Viking-themed bed and breakfast fires off several hilarious anti-Green Bay Packers jokes before expressing his doubts that the stone’s discover Olof Ohman could have lived a lie for his whole life. Yet another rune stone believer parallels the skepticism toward the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone with the modern skepticism towards Christianity. “Your’re always going to have skeptics…but God has given the human race free will.”
To believers in the Kensington Rune Stone, including the enthusiasts portrayed in Lost Conquest, there has been a lot at stake in the question of whether or not Viking visited Minnesota. Immigrants from Sweden and Norway believed that if their ancestors had visited North America, it would prove that they truly belonged in their new Minnesota home. Civic boosters used the Viking narrative to prove that their region of Minnesota was historically significant and the true “Birthplace of America.” More perniciously, many interpreted the inscription’s story about Vikings found “red with blood and dead” as evidence the Native Americans had always been irredeemably savage and it was, therefore, justified that Dakota people were expelled from the state in the 1860s.
Lost Conquest paints a sympathetic yet critical portrait of contemporary believers in one of Minnesota’s most powerful myths of origin. The film not only sheds light on the genesis and propagation of local folklore, it raises larger questions about the nature of religious belief itself.
To find out where Lost Conquest is playing next, click on the Facebook page link in the text above. Lost Conquest makes a fine viewing companion before or after you read Myths of the Rune Stone: Viking Martyrs and the Birthplace of America. Please be in contact if you would like to interview one or both of us.
Last week, my family and I traveled to Minnesota for a combination book tour and vacation. Flying across the country with young kids is no easy feat, and it is important to make sure you have all the necessary supplies i.e. diapers, favorite toys, etc. I’m particularly grateful for the brick of wet wipes my wife stuffed in the diaper bag at the last minute. They came in handy cleaning up the mess from our one-year-old vomiting four times (yes, four times!) in the rented car seat. Although motion sickness is a common ailment afflicting my side of the family, I think it might have been exacerbated by an overindulgence of pizza and (slightly) expired birthday cake on the plane. The day ended a bit more smoothly than it began as my wife and I were able to attend my twentieth-year college reunion. It was great to see many old friends and I was honored to provide a copy of my book Myths of the Rune Stone: Viking Martyrs and the Birthplace of America as a reunion door prize.
Although I’ve lived in Philadelphia for most of twenty years, we make it a priority for our boys to spend time with their Krueger grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who still live in Minnesota. It is also good to be back on the farm where I grew up. I love watching the sun rise over the vast soybean field visible from my parent’s picture window. After spending some time Sunday and Monday with the relatives, my wife and I left the boys with my sister and traveled on Tuesday to St. Cloud, where I spoke to a group of students and faculty in the history department at St. Cloud State University. I was invited by Mary Lethert Wingerd, a well-respected historian of Minnesota who wrote a blurb for my book. She is teaching a seminar this semester on public history and wanted me to talk about the Kensington Rune Stone in terms of a civic monument that both commemorated the deaths of Minnesota’s pioneer settlers during the Dakota War of 1862 and legitimated white claims to a landscape once occupied by someone else. It was a great experience to talk with people who had actually read the book and engaged its ideas critically.
Students and faculty from from the history department at St. Cloud State University.
My wife and I enjoyed an evening at the St. John’s Abbey Guest House. It is relaxing and peaceful environment and the location of a number my writing retreats in the past. In fact, my chapter on the Catholic interest in Viking origin myths was written, in part, on the St. John’s University campus. On this visit, I serendipitously met the granddaughter of one of the rune stone enthusiasts I had written about in the book. I apologized in advance if she took offense to what I said about her late grandmother. As historians, we often think we are safe writing about people who are dead, but we have to remember that we still may have to contend with their descendants!
On Wednesday, we ventured down to St. Paul where my first stop was to have coffee with one of the peer reviewers of my manuscript, Jon Butler, a former Yale University professor and perhaps one of the most recognizable names in the field of American religious history. It was great to swap stories about our experiences of growing up in rural Minnesota. Both of our fathers were farmers! After talking with Jon, we made our way to the Amsterdam Bar and Hall for a quick dinner and then proceeded to Subtext Books for my scheduled book talk. In addition to many book store patrons, several of my high school friends showed up as well. We had a robust conversation about the role that myths play in human life and what the rune stone story reveals about the anxieties, aspirations, and values of Minnesotans. [Podcast forthcoming].
While my friends gathered for drinks after the book talk, my wife and I made the two-hour trek back to Alexandria to relieve my sister of child care duty. She got to enjoy an abundance of “auntie time” with her two active nephews and I think she was finally ready to get some rest! First thing on Thursday morning, I made my way to the KXRA radio station for a live interview on a popular local talk show. That evening, I spoke at a book event sponsored by the Douglas County Historical Society. It was held at a senior living facility and was attended by a very eclectic crowd: a combination of die-hard rune stone enthusiasts, local historians, public school teachers, clergy members, former high school classmates, members of my family, and other concerned citizens who wanted to know what this hometown boy was going to say about the town he left behind. Many of the questions centered on the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone rather than the cultural phenomenon enveloping it. If you listen to the recording, you can hear one Viking enthusiast pelting me with questions. He later told me that through a divination ritual known as dowsing, he had discerned the exact names and burial locations of the Norsemen he claimed had visited Minnesota in 1362. Despite the digressions into pseudoscience, I was impressed that so many locals were willing to think critically about an origin myth that has defined the community for decades.
Although I enjoyed many of the parts of the book tour, I think my favorite events took place on Friday. I left early in the morning for a long drive to Minneapolis where I was interviewed by philosopher Peter Shea for a cable access TV show called “Bat of Minerva” (a Hegelian reference). The hour-long interview is scheduled to air on a future Sunday morning at 12 am. If Minnesotans are not already asleep by that time, it is quite likely that this rather slow-paced interview with me will help them get there. Following the interview, I gave a lecture on my book at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota. If you watch the video below, you will hear some really great questions posed by graduate students, faculty, and other scholars interested in multidisciplinary research. We had a great conversations about the distinctions between history and myth, and the relationship between religion and science. I’m especially grateful that Jeanne H. Kilde, chair of the religion department, and several prominent historians who were in attendance.
Finally, in the video, you will notice an attendee who posed several questions about why I do not consider the Kensington Rune Stone to be authentic. That person is none other than Scott Wolter, a History Channel celebrity and host of America Unearthed. Wolter is surely the most well-known and controversial figures in the rune stone story. His research methods have been criticized by many in the scientific community, including one of his former research partners. Yet, his fantastic theories about the Knights of Templar traversing the North American wilderness in the fourteenth century have piqued the interest of millions of Americans who yearn to imagine a pre-Columbian America populated by more than just Indians. You’ll have to read my book to learn more about my thoughts on the tradition of myth making in American history.
The event at the U of M was the last of my book tour for the week and I dedicated Saturday to family activities before we headed to the airport on Sunday morning. It’s a good thing we brought along extra wipes for the return trip, because, as you probably guessed, an affliction of motion sickness struck again. I couldn’t have been happier to return the car seat to the rental company. There is only so much cleaning one can do with wet wipes.
Myths of the Rune Stone 