Welcome to Den Norske Grenda

Welcome to Den Norske Grenda. Little Norwegian Village. , Little Norwegian Village , Brought over from Telemark, Norway in 1989, these log buildings were built and assembled like lincoln logs in one month with the help of three Norwegians, establishing a building complex that represented the heritage of Washington Island's Scandinavian immigrants., The fine craftmanship of the Norwegian carvers is shown in the intricate details of the posts and trim on these buildings. Wood carving has been a popular hobby and lifetime work of many Norwegians for centuries., The traditional word for gnomes in the Scandinavian culture is Tomte which was originally coined in Birgitta of Sweden in the 1300s. They are as Nisse in Norway and Denmark. , Gnomes are believed to live for 400 years to the Norwegian folklore each farmstead Christmas gnome living in their stabbur. The Christmas gnome brings gifts for well-behaved children. Some people put out a bowl of rice porridge sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon to keep their barn gnome happy, much like children today leave out cookies for Santa., Stabbur , A stabbur traditionally consists of a main, cube-shaped room for storing food (usually grain). It was topped by a slightly larger room used for storage of food (fruits and vegetables), furniture, spare living quarters, or for smoking meat and placed upon pedestals to deter pests., The most prominent feature of the log buildings is the sod roof. Roofs in Scandinavia have been covered with sod since prehistory. The advantages of sod roofs are many. They are very heavy so they help to stabilize and compress the logs and make the walls more drought- proof. Sod is a reasonably efficient insulator in a cold climate. Finally, à sod roof is cheap to construct and they are long-lasting.