Trip to Norway will honor Lincoln, 1914 trip to N.D.

As the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth approaches, efforts are under way to bring a group of people with ties to North Dakota to Norway to honor Lincoln at a bust of the 16th president in Oslo.

This trip, scheduled for June 20 through June 30, is commemorating both the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth and the 1914 trip led by then-Gov. Louis Hanna when he presented a heroic size bust of Lincoln from the people of North Dakota during Norway’s 100th anniversary celebration of its constitution and declaration as an independent nation.

Joining Hanna at the July 4, 1914, dedication ceremony for the bust in Oslo’s Frogner Park was a large delegation of other North Dakotans. Rick Collin, who is the state coordinator for North Dakota’s Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial observance, said the U.S. Embassy and others with ties to the state have held annual programs on or near the Fourth of July in front of the bust every year since.

“During Germany’s World War II occupation of Norway, the Lincoln bust became the site of silent anti-Nazi protests every July 4, from 1940 until the war’s end in 1945,” said Collin, communications and education director for the State Historical Society of North Dakota. “Thousands of Norwegians would gather around the statue, their heads bowed in silence and prayer. Typically, the Germans forbade any public gatherings or demonstrations, but they did not halt this annual event.”

The itinerary for the trip includes a cultural tour that focuses on North Dakota’s connections to Norway, and the impact the U.S. Homestead Act had on emigration, which brought thousands of Norwegians to the upper Midwest. Collin said the U.S. Homestead Act, which was signed by President Lincoln in 1862, brought many Northern Europeans to the United States. The original Homestead Act, bearing President Lincoln’s signature, was displayed at the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck from May 16 through Nov. 11, 2008, on loan from the National Archives.

In addition to the ceremony in front of the Lincoln bust at Frogner Park, other plans for the group include a reception at the U.S. Embassy and other stops in the Oslo area, as well as an excursion to Norway’s fjord country. Organizing the trip is the University of North Dakota’s Nordic Initiative, North Dakota Horizons magazine, and Brekke Tours and Travel of Grand Forks.

More details are available by visiting www.brekketours.com, www.ndhorizons.com by emailing tour@brekketours.com, or calling 1-800-437-5302.

For more information about the Lincoln Bicentennial, visit the State Historical Society of North Dakota’s Web site at www.history.nd.gov or the Abraham Lincoln National Bicentennial Commission website at www.abrahamlincoln200.org. For more information about the Homestead Act, visit www.nps.gov/home.

Tags: abraham lincoln, community, lincoln, norway, trip, oslo, bicentennial