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Last Friday my girlfriend and I had the experience to visit the Heritage Hjemkomst Interpretive Center in Moorhead. This year the museum is celebrating the 25th year anniversary of the sailing of the Hjemkomst ship from Duluth, MN to Norway. Although the museum is known for the ship it also had three other displays on site. This includes: The history of the development of the Red River Valley, a traveling exhibit called Children of the World and finally the Hopperstad Stave Church Replica. For those not familiar with the Hjemkomst ship it was built by Robert Asp a counselor at a local Moorhead Public School. As he was ill in the hospital he read about the Viking Warriors and decided to rebuild one of their ships they used to sail across the world. He spent many years building this ship in Hawley, Minnesota and when he finished it he moved it to Duluth to see if it would actually float. When it did he was ecstatic but unfortunately he died of Leukemia so he never was part of its maiden and only journey across the Atlantic. Instead four of his children along with a crew of nine did sail it all the way to Norway making a stop in New York City.

We visited all four exhibits and recieved a personal tour of the Hopperstad church. We also watched a film on the sailing of the Hjemkomst ship. It is a great museum because it has the history on how this area was formed thousands and millions of years ago and also has history on the strong Norwegian ties to this area. Growing up in Fargo I have been to the museum a few times to see different traveling exhibits they have had including: Dinosaurs and etc... Overall, it was a great trip and we spent a little more than two hours exploring it.