BEMIDJI — Nate Johnson got his first taste of Scandinavian culture when he was 7 years old as a camper at Concordia Language Villages.
Now the 49-year-old Bemidjian will taste it in person.
Johnson, a
has been awarded a grant from the American-Scandinavian Foundation to visit Norway and Sweden, where he will study traditional Scandinavian leather tanning and knife sheath making.
He will be there for three weeks in June, working with master tanners Karl Karlsson in Sweden and Sofie Kleppe in Vågåmo, Norway, as well as master knife makers Olav Mortensen and Morten Håkonsen in Skien, Norway.
The project will culminate in a free public presentation and workshop later this year at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minn., where participants will learn traditional tanning methods and craft knife sheaths from naturally tanned leather, blending Scandinavian craftsmanship with Upper Midwest traditions.
Dan Gunderson / MPR News
“This will be just a really unique opportunity to be in Norway and Sweden working closely with masters of the craft to really refine what I already know,” Johnson said. “I think it’s going to be a good opportunity for me because I have done a lot of tanning and a lot of knife making and knife sheath making. But this will be going deep into the tradition and seeing some of the really highly refined ways that people have developed to do these crafts.”
The trip also will be a bit of a family reunion for Johnson, whose mother is of Norwegian descent and whose father is half Swedish. Nate’s parents, brother and sister plan to visit while he is there. His parents live in Park Rapids, Minn., where Nate and his siblings grew up.
“I still do have some relatives in Norway,” Nate said, “and my dad’s father is from Sweden. I’m going to meet up with them for a few days, and then we are going to (the region of) Setesdal, where a lot of my relatives live in the village of Evje. So we’re going to try to make a trip there.”
He added, “This is a great opportunity to connect with my ancestral heritage as well as working with my professional craft.”
That craft has allowed Johnson to make a living teaching and selling things he makes at his rural Bemidji farmstead.
“I have a website,
that I sell from,” he said. “Then people just contact me for orders. The website is the best place to see what I have available.”
Dennis Doeden, former publisher of the Bemidji Pioneer, is a feature reporter. He is a graduate of Metropolitan State University with a degree in Communications Management.