Norsk Hostfest brings in vendors, artists and entertainers from around the globe to bring a unique cultural experience to the Minot area.

The Norsk Hostfest, which means Fall Festival in Norwegian, is a world-recognized festival celebrating the Scandinavian heritage that has made its mark on Minot culture. The beloved festival is filled to the brim with Scandinavian art, food, music, trolls and people looking to embrace their ancestral roots.

The idea for Hostfest started during the sesquicentennial of Norwegian immigration to America in the 1970s. Inspired by Lutheran churches around the country, churches in Minot came together and held an event consisting of Norwegian food, accordion music and traditional rosemaling art. The event was held annually for three years in Minot Municipal Auditorium.

“Chester Reiten was the mayor at the time and he said, ‘We’ve got to continue this.’ I mean, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. It was this event that inspired the beginning of the Norsk Hostfest,” said Pam Davy, former longtime executive director and co-founder of Hostfest.

The first year, Norsk Hostfest was held in the Great Hall at the North Dakota State Fair Center and consisted of music and a lutefisk dinner. The event garnered so much attention the Minot Fire Department had to turn people away – the event was planned to host 500, but over 1,000 showed up.

Two weeks after the first Hostfest, Reiten held a publicity meeting which Davy attended. She said she was hooked from the very beginning.

“Chester would have these big meetings – these big, noisy, raucous meetings. Everybody – the professional community leaders, the community church people came – the meetings were so fun.

Chester had a very charismatic personality – a big guy who loved the stage, loved to be in charge and was just an absolutely natural leader and very proud of his Norwegian heritage,” Davy said.

When the festival planning was in full swing there were up to 165 chairmen who each had their own committees that were committed to bring Reiten’s vision to fruition. Davy said Reiten’s philosophy was to find the right people to do the right jobs and then get out of their way and let them do their work.

“Chester’s idea was that the festival has to be so dynamic and so compelling, so exciting that someone 1,000 miles away will not just get in the car – they’re going to run to their car and they’re going to drive 1,000 miles to Minot of all places in the world to go.

We wanted music around every corner. Se wanted Scandinavia wherever you looked. Transforming that cold, gray concrete building into a festival was one of the challenges, too,” Davy said.

Decorating would start 15 days prior to the festival, when the team of 30 would bring Scandinavia to every wall, ceiling, nook and cranny they could.

The notoriety of the festival became so far and wide it started to outgrow the building.

“Obviously, it grew pretty fast. It mushroomed every year, and all of a sudden we’re working with corporate sponsors, and we’re working with tour buses, and we’re out of hotel rooms and we ran out of lutefisk – and they were great problems to have,” Davy said.

The addition of the Scandinavian American Hall of Fame added another dimension to the festival. It gave organizers the platform to invite notable people to the festival.

Princess Astrid, of Norway, came to Hostfest twice, which Davy said was very intense. The Norwegian Consulate from Minneapolis traveled to Minot three days in advance to train organizers how to handle royalty, which consisted of a lot of protocol with a tremendous amount of detail. That year astronaut Buzz Aldrin was among those who were being inducted into the Hall of Fame as he is of Swedish descent. Davy recalled there being an issue with the princess’s travel arrangements on her departure so she left alongside Aldrin in his private jet.

“I remember Chester kissed the ground when she left,” she said.

The Norsk Hostfest has given festival-goers the opportunity to bond with their heritage in a significant, tangible way for decades. Having solidified itself as North America’s largest Scandinavian festival, it will continue to honor Reiten’s legacy for years to come.