On the Viking Trail: Travels in Scandinavian America by Don Lago

B o o k r e v ie w s 4 6 7 On the Viking Trail: Travels in Scandinavian America. By Don Lago. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2004. 275 pages, $27.95. Reviewed by Jennifer Eastman Attebery Idaho State University, Pocatello In On theVikingTrail, Don Lago’stravelsprovide the frameworkfor an extended personal essay on what it means to be ethnic in America. Lago is a Westerner and a non-Swedish-speaking, fourth'generation Swedish American. His trav­ els, therefore, represent a rediscovery of his immigrant roots from outside the heartland of “Scandinavian America,” the upper Midwest. Readers who are similarly distant from their Nordic roots and interested in rediscovering them will find Lago’spresentation interesting and sympathetic. Lago’s travels take him to important Nordic settlements across the continental United States, from the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota to Kingsburg, California; from Chicago’s Andersonville to the Seattle area’s Poulsbo; from Bishop Hill, Illinois, to Spanish Fork and Ephraim, Utah. It is commendable that Lago includes the West, where Nordic settlement is less well known, but he does leave out significant settlements in New England and Texas. Lago is at turns witty, resistant, and poignant concerning his own tenuous ethnicity: witty in calling followers ofJenny Lind, Daniel Webster, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Lindheads” (16); resistant in criticizing the crowd at Augustana College that respectfully stood up in the presence of the Swedish king and queen; and poignant in considering the impact ofpersonal and famil­ ial memory loss, in his own father and in Reeve Lindbergh’s mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The book moves from a simple view of ethnicity, in which immigrants are seen as simply bringing their culture to America like baggage, to a more complex view in which ethnicity is understood as a symbol system. Lago thus recapitulates the history of ethnic studies. Also enjoyable is the book’s smorgasbord of factual tidbits. Many readers may already know that R T. Bamum promoted Lind’s American tour, but do they know about the influence of the Danish journalist Jacob Riis on Teddy Roosevelt? Lago’sdocumentation of this information is limited, though, as he footnotes only quotations. At many points, his arguments would be bolstered by citation ofthe significant recent workconcerningNordic ethnicity by schol­ ars such as Orm Overland and Dag Blanck. Lago paints with a broad brush as he asserts that the Nordic immigrants contributed a particular set of values, especially a sense of cooperative com­ munity, to America. It is a bold thesis with which one would like to agree, but proof would require much more detailed sociological and historical source work than ispossible in the genre Lago has chosen. Scholars in Nordic studies will notice the several points where his brush is too broad and too hasty. Was there a “Scandinavian enthusiasm for Mormonism” (173)? Lago emends this 4 6 8 W e s t e r n A m e r ic a n L i t e r a t u r e W in t e r 2 0 0 7 statement a fewpages later by admitting that LDS missionaries faced obstacles in Sweden and Norway. Is it true that “by not settling in cities, [Nordic immigrants ] escapedbecoming cogs in a tough industrial system” (148)?Fortunately, later chapters make it clear that Nordic immigration was substantial in the Twin Cities, Quad Cities, Chicago, Salt Lake City, and Seattle. Lilac Moon: Dreaming of the Real West. By Sharon Butala. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2005. 256 pages, Can $34.95/Can $19.95. Reviewed by Megan Riley McGilchrist University of Derby, United Kingdom With her newest book, Canadian author Sharon Butala addresses the ques­ tion of what it means to be a Westerner. In a departure from her earlier works, Lilac Moon is mainly historical, revealing the history of the prairie provinces of Canada through a history ofButala’sancestors and through evidence ofhistori­ cal events including the Riel Rebellions and the activities of the Hudson Bay Company and those of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. The book begins with a series of questions that precede the central chap­ ters. “What makes a Westerner?” is answered variously by chapters on the Westerner’srelationship to the...

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