Group plans to take Lincoln bicentennial trip to Norway
BISMARCK Efforts are under way for a group of people with ties to North Dakota to travel to Norway for next year's Fourth of July observances.
The trip is one of the events being planned in North Dakota to commemorate the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth.
On July 4, 1914, North Dakota Gov. Louis Hanna presented a heroic size bust of Lincoln to Norway for that nation's centennial celebration of its independence from Sweden. Joining Hanna at the 1914 dedication ceremony for the bust in Oslo's Frogner Park was a large delegation of other North Dakotans.
Rick Collin, Bismarck, state coordinator for North Dakota's Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial observance, said annual July 4th programs have been held in front of the bust every year since by the U.S. Embassy and others with ties to the U.S. and North Dakota.
"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."
Collin said the Homestead Act, which was signed by Lincoln in 1862, brought many northern Europeans, including people from Norway, to then-northern Dakota Territory, later North Dakota. The original Homestead Act bearing President Lincoln's signature is on display in the N.D. Heritage Center in Bismarck through Nov. 10.
Organizing next year's trip is the University of North Dakota's Nordic Initiative, North Dakota Horizons magazine, and Brekke Tours and Travel of Grand Forks. In addition to participating in the July 4, 2009, ceremony, other plans for the group include a reception at the U.S. Embassy and other stops in the Oslo area, and an excursion to Norway's fjord country.
More details about the trip will be available in September.
