Commemorating Norwegian Crossings with Music and More

SPRING GROVE – The Giants of the Earth Heritage Center, southeast Minnesota’s widely-respected Norwegian cultural and genealogical center, is adding to 2025’s 200-year international commemoration of Norway’s first organized emigration to North America with two notable achievements: Hosting “Sailing into Spring Grove: A Musical Celebration of 2025” and welcoming its new executive director.

Sailing into Spring Grove

“Sailing into Spring Grove: A Musical Celebration of 2025” recognizes multiple community milestones. First, it’s one of many events this year highlighting “Crossings 200,” a year-long international bicentennial observance of the first organized emigration of Norwegians to North America. 

This is particularly significant given Spring Grove’s Norwegian Ridge location in Houston County, an area that attracted many early Norwegian emigrants because of its Norwegian-like topography.

A poster for the upcoming music celebration on April 4, 2025. (Photo submitted by Giants of the Earth)

The event also marks a special occasion for the Luren Singing Society, a Decorah, Iowa-based men’s chorus, recognizing the leadership of Dr. David Judisch, a Luther College professor emeritus who has directed the Luren Singers for 50 years. Tracing its roots back to the mid-1800s, the Luren Singing Society is recognized as one of the oldest Norwegian men’s choruses that still exists today.   

This special fundraiser includes dinner and a performance by the Luren Singers and soloist Rachel Storlie. 

Leading the way

When you learn that Joe Grodahl was a kid who grew up in Bloomington, Minn., playing tennis racket baseball in his front yard and rooting for the hometown Twins, that he graduated from Bloomington-Jefferson High School, went on to get an MBA and a law degree at the University of Minnesota and St. Thomas, and later became a successful lawyer, you might wonder how he was recently named the first full-time Executive Director of the Giants of the Earth Heritage Center.

Learn a little more and you see why that’s an amazing fit – for Joe, now 43 years old, and the Giants. Talk about hand-in-glove.

First, Giants of the Earth was established in 2009, in one of the most Norwegian communities in the United States. Immigration to the area dates back to the 1850s. 

Ties to the “old country” still run mega-deep in Spring Grove. Want proof of that enthusiasm? Check out the town’s four-day Syttende Mai Festival held there each May. Uff da!

Joe Grodahl, new full-time Executive Director at Giants of the Earth Heritage Center in Spring Grove. (Photo by Steve Harris)

And now, Joe Grodahl. Yes, he grew up in the Twin Cities, but both his parents come from strong Norwegian stock. 

Joe’s mother, Kris Grodahl, grew up in Norway and currently serves as council president at the Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church (“Mindekirken”) in Minneapolis, the only church in America that still offers weekly services in Norwegian. His dad’s side of the family arrived in Fillmore County from Norway in the 1860s. Joe has dual citizenship — the U.S. and Norway — and speaks the language fluently. 

Connecting through language

“I wanted to learn Norwegian so I could speak with my grandparents in their native language,” Grodahl remembers. 

“When I first tried talking to my grandmother, she told me I was using the wrong dialect. ‘Too formal,’ she said. I had to work on that!” 

Grodahl spent a gap year after high school living in Norway, later worked at the United Nations in Geneva, and eventually became program and operations director at Norway House in Minneapolis whose mission over the last two decades has been to connect the United States and contemporary Norway through arts, business and culture.

“I loved working at Norway House,” he says. “A real highlight was in October, 2022, when Queen Sonja of Norway came for the grand opening of our expanded facilities. That was a weekend everyone will remember.”

Through his family and work at Norway House, Grodahl visited and became familiar with Spring Grove and Giants of the Earth. 

Rosemaling by famed Norwegian artist Sigmund Aarseth is featured throughout the Center.

“You cannot learn about Norwegian history in America without knowing about Spring Grove,” he says. “When I heard about the Executive Director position opening at Giants it was certainly an opportunity I eagerly explored. I’m very excited that the door opened.”

New life in a small town

After growing up in the Twin Cities and living in Norway and Switzerland, will life in a small community like Spring Grove – a town of about 1,200 people – be an adjustment?

“Yes, in some ways,” says Grodahl, “but I’m definitely looking forward to it. My work at the U.N. gave me a front-row seat to so much happening around the world and I met so many people. But all of that actually left me craving a simpler, small-town lifestyle. 

“Many things come together for me in Spring Grove,” he continues. “My heritage and background, obviously, but it’s also a town with a vibrant, entrepreneurial spirit that faces challenges with a can-do attitude. For a small town, it packs quite a punch! I’ve bought a house — I can walk to work! — and I’m looking forward to being a part of all that’s happening here.”

Family histories, family trees

“My family celebrates stories from both ends of the emigration spectrum,” Grodahl explains. “My father’s family came here as part of the first wave of Norwegian immigrants in the 1860s; a century later my maternal grandparents moved to America. 

“Giants of the Earth’s genealogical work helps collect family stories like that. We’re helping keep track of the Norwegian diaspora! Giants’ family tree project here has collected more than 100,000 names!”

“We are storytellers at giants”

Now just a few months into his new job in a new place that feels like home, what are Joe Grodahl’s professional and personal priorities in Spring Grove and at Giants of the Earth in the next few years?

“I see Giants as the storytellers of Spring Grove,” he says. “As we do that, we’ll help Spring Grovers have an even stronger sense of what makes this place special, and we’ll play our part in putting this town on the map even more than it already is. 

“We want to encourage more visitors to experience all that Giants and Spring Grove have to offer. At Giants we want to strengthen our existing programs, like our Norwegian Ridge Language and Culture Camp and our Genetic Ancestry Group, and to grow new programs. 

“Personally,” Grodahl concludes, “I can’t wait to get out hiking to explore more of this beautiful area. I’m also looking forward to getting back to some fishing!”