Lakeland PBSpbs presents Common Ground, brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Production funding of Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the community.

Member FDIC.

Welcome to Common Ground.

I'm Pproducer/Director Scott Knudson.

In this 2- segment episode made by the two newest additions to Lakeland's Legacy production team, we visit the Butter and Dairy Museum in Vergas, Minnesota, and the Crow Wing Viking Fest in Brainerd.

Welcome to the Crow Wing Viking Festival.

It's August 21st, and the festival opened at 10 a.m this morning and it goes to 4 30 this afternoon.

This is our 2nd annual festival.

We weren't, of course, able to do it last year.

There are a ton of fun things to do here.

Viking Fest is a celebration of all things Viking.

There's so much misinformation, and the first one is that Vikings had horns.

The horns came about from an 1800's Wagner Opera.

The costume designer thought that horns on helmets would be cool, and they are, but that wasn't what the real Vikings were about.

There's a lot of misconceptions about the Vikings, my ancestors, and so this celebrates all things legitimately, real Viking.

We came up with that slogan "Real Vikings, No Horns," There's a lot to learn, they're very interesting people, very sophisticated, very structural society, women were held in high esteem and there's a lot to know about the Viking culture.

I'm Julie Guth, and I'm the coordinator for the Crow Wing Viking festival, and one of a group of 7 people who do the planning for this.

I just, I love Vikings, and so I wanted to share actual Viking culture, "Real Vikings, No Horns" with people in the area and from all over.

I'm dan Hegstad, and I am a volunteer with the Crow Wing Viking Festival.

I do a lot of the PR and Marketing, and we're a small group so I do kind of whatever needs doing.

One of the reasons there's so many people at the Crow Wing Viking Festival is because there's just so much to see and do here.

If you look around, you see so many families and who wouldn't want to come to Brainerd, Minnesota for a nice weekend in the summer and enjoy this?

The kids are having a great time, there's a whole building of kids crafts, and things for kids to do.

Jacob, here, my new friend, was showing me the craft that he made, its a flying dragon.

"Nobody else made it with the flame, because I thought it would be cool, so it's breathing fire, this is my shoe, the middle is supposed to be like an eyeball."

There's also "rune writing," kids can write their names in in runes, and it's in self-hardening clay and there are few other crafts in the building as well.

It's been a really popular area.

We have lots of food for the whole family, and then behind me the Viking encampment.

It's, what if these Vikings were traveling and they stopped for a few days.

I'm here at the potters, we have almost everything here; we have pottery, we have wood supplies, we have jewelry, we have drinking horns.

There's someone working on a warp-weighted loom over there, which is what they used to create the sails for the ships, among other things.

There's so many things here, all the crafts, there's a blacksmith, people doing open-fire cooking.

We also have somebody who wrote an epic poem that he has illustrated in a book that's going to be around here, too, and he's going to be doing readings.

"some lumpish rings, a gilded aurochs horn crusted with gems, a sentry shrieked, the devils thronged, and all but 30 of my men were torn to shrimp."

We have the mock battles, the people are really enjoying that, it's family friendly but still very realistic.

They do a great job of balancing that, keeping it family friendly.

The Vikings have always fascinated me, and of course, you know I'm a Norwegian American, at least partly, and so it's part of my cultural heritage.

I've always wanted to know more and I was absolutely delighted to find out that the Vikings did more than just raiding, there was a whole really complex culture that was highly artistic, for one thing, and the ships that they built were state of the art.

I love this event because it's real, "Real Vikings, No Horns."

It's fun, but the organizers were serious that it's not going to be silly.

This isn't a costume party, this is about the real Vikings, my heritage.

When I did the the genetic test, it showed a very small part of Norway and a little bit of Sweden.

That's where my people are is right there.

I'm all Scandinavian, and this celebrates my ancestors, and they were some really interesting people.

They did some pretty nasty stuff, there's no question about that, but the culture was something to be celebrated, and I'm really glad to be involved in that.

It started because I attended a Viking festival in Moorhead, Hjemkomst, and I thought it was so interesting and I started talking to the re-enactors and I thought "Wow," "wouldn't that be a great event to bring to the Brainerd community?"

It's totally different from anything else that we have here.

When we did the first Viking Festival 2 years ago in Nisswa, we had no idea how many people were going to come 200, 300?

We had almost 950 people at that first one.

We knew we were doing the right thing.

Nisswa was great, but just not enough room to even host the 1000 people that came, but here we are at the Crow Wing County Fairgrounds, which is such a great venue for us because we have plenty of room to do the mock battles, a nice location here for the viking encampment, tons of free parking, all the food vendors, we have all that infrastructure power and so forth that they need.

Animals, you can have animals at the fairgrounds, so we've got the horses and the sheep and we can expand that.

I hope even bigger and better than this, we'd like to add re-enactors every year, we'd certainly like even more vendors who are doing Viking-related things to come in, but this could be a huge event for years to come.

We could have thousands of people coming to the Crow Wing Viking Festival.

I really think it's a regional event, there's a lot of Norwegians in North Dakota, Wisconsin, all over Minnesota.

I think people can come here to Brainerd and enjoy this for years to come.

We're in Gordon's Butter and Dairy Museum, which is located in the lower level of the bank in Vergas.

Gordon owned the bank, and he was President and Chairman of the Board here at the bank.

Gordon loved this sign that's behind me that says, "What they have created, let us preserve."

If you do not know where you came from, or if you do not know what the beginning and the history of it was, it's really hard to understand where you're at.

Gordon truly believed that, so he's like, "Okay, I loved farming."

He was 11 years old when he was milking cows, once before he went to school, and after school.

It was hard work, they did a lot of the stuff themselves, even built the barns and all the sheds.

they built em themselves, of course with neighbors help.

It was an interesting time and this is back in the 30's.

He was very proud of his heritage, growing up on a farm, even at the bank here, he loved it when the farmers would come in and visit.

Farming was always in his heart, and stayed there.

He loved the the simplicity of it, he loved the genuine honest hard work of it.

as he became older and went into a different profession, obviously, he still kept that passion.

Back in the day, through the bank here, we also clerked auction sales and so I think a lot of the stuff in the museum here, he picked up at those auction sales, too, by clerking them, and so he was always the first one to bid on that stuff that came up on the auction sale.

When he got that first piece at an auction sale, and then the next piece, and then people started hearing about it, and I think that's what happened in the community, too.

People started hearing there was a place to put some of their items that they had the same passion about, that they wanted people to remember.

You collect one thing, and it turned into 600 items, so you know how that goes.

He really loved collecting, we rode around with him, so we didn't miss an antique store.

I mean, I was probably "that high," and we hit every one between here and Minneapolis and Arizona, so it was kind of fun.

Us siblings would take turns driving him back and forth to Scottsdale, Arizona, where he wintered.

You never took the interstate, you always took back roads, because that's where all the antique shops were.

There's always one churn that he's been looking for, forever, even until the day he died, was a no.

10 Daisy Churn.

We've stopped at every antique store between Scottsdale, Arizona and Vergas, Minnesota looking for that no.

10 Daisy Churn and we never found it.

Here you had Gordon's vision of being able to display not only the churns, but then he was able to have enough space that he could expand it.

All that you're going to see that's curated, that's Gordon, he displayed it.

This is where it all started, this is the very first butter churn that Gordon purchased at an auction sale, and then he bought another one and then he bought another one, and then all of a sudden, it turned into... like you're going to see over 600 items here.

In this area here, are just a lot of the different churns that he had.

We've got some of the cream separators over here, when you stop and think of this, this is how milk was delivered, this is an actual liquid container that the milk was delivered in.

I think the thing that always intrigues me, too, is when you look at these butter churns, nothing's electric.

There was a lot of work that was put into all of this, and so whether I think you were shaking the jar, or turning it, or whatever, there is just ...It wasn't electric, it was, to get to that point it took some some muscle, maybe that's why everybody was so in shape back then.

Gordon liked to display things.

One of Gordon's other passions was woodworking and so he built a lot of these display cases.

He built all the little items that would hold, what we've got here is the butter molds.

these butter molds are so intriguing because they are so intricate in what they have, as far as like a pineapple, or a and then that would kind of be your signature thing, when you would take butter to maybe a family gathering or whatever.

You would put the butter in there, and you would put it down on a plate, and that mold would go on top and then the top of your butter would just have that beautiful .. whatever your symbol was, and so theres a lot of the different butter molds.

Then these were the paddles, obviously these are smaller ones but I think one of the things that Gordon..Well, he loved De Laval, as you can see.

He collected the different signs and anything De Laval, he would end up buying.

This right here is a Franklin cream cooler, and Ed Franklin, who started Franklin Fence here in Vergas, he invented this, so this was a pretty big deal.

There was a new cream-grading law thing that came out through the dairy states, and it improved the quality of everything, and he invented this and there were testimonials and there were.. it got to be a big deal.

Gordon ended up with one of those Franklin cream coolers, and he was always pretty proud of the fact that a guy from Vergas is who invented that.

As you can see back here, he kind of got into some of the De Laval, just the little intricate type things, they had letter openers, just some kind of those things that would come out at Christmas time.

Then up above, and you'll see this throughout the whole museum, are the different cheese boxes and so anytime, if you couldn't find that No.

10 Daisy Churn, you had to buy a cheese box.

There's a cheese box from just about every creamery that you can find, from Arizona to Minnesota, so that's what those are for, too, All right, what we've got here is just a beautiful case that Gordon loved to display probably some of the more breakable things, and because he was always hoping that kids would come down here, and so he'd have some of those little butter dishes down there that definitely are antiques, and some of the little items came from the creamery here, the different things that they would use to test the different cream and different things that would make sure that everything was working good.

That's where he kind of put his books and everything.

That cow he got from Germany, this is a hand-carved cow that a neighbor of his went to Germany and then they were talking about the butter museum, and so they came, this came in the mail.

I remember when that happened.

We keep in a prominent place here - the picture, this is the first picture of Gordon, milking cows back when he was a young kid.

You don't see a lot of machines there, I think it was pretty much done by hand.

I think one of the things here, too, that I always think about, are these watch fobs.

You see the De Laval, you see the cow, and I think of this only because you get to a point where you've probably collected everything that you can as far as molds and separators and churns and things like that.

This was one of the last things that he was working on collecting before his death, and I know that he was looking for those watch fobs in a lot of different places, and was trying to grow his collection a little bit in that.

He became very fond of having the watch fobs.

These little milk covers here, again, just like the butter boxes and just like the cheese boxes, these were what identified you as a dairy, or as a farm that would deliver milk.

This would have your name, "Shady Lane" or "Catski Farm", or whatever it was on it, and so these little milk caps that went on top of the milk bottle like this, which was, you can see, that identified who your dairy was.

We're back in the area where the ,,, When the creamery here in Vergas closed , Gordon obtained, of course, a lot of the things that were there.

You've got like your test tubes, this machine here would test the different cream content, and that was for making butter.

You would have all of that, you would have the cream cans which would bring in the cream.

The farmers would actually just bring in their cream cans and the scales, obviously this goes back before it would get to the creamery, these were what were used on the farm after you got past that point where you had to do the milking by hand.

Then, what was in this display case is, you know how at Christmas everybody, all of the businesses, when they used to be able to economically afford it, they would give that Christmas gift away to their patrons, to their customers; and these are some of the different.. whether it be the little cream pitchers, or some years you had utensils, and so there's a display of that too.

We also have, comes back to the dairy days, and so it's fun, he kept a lot of the posters from that era too, and so you can see the evolution of that, from how it was such a, it was a big deal in town.

It was a lot of fun and he had him dressed up all the way back there to the 60's.

Okay, so what you're seeing here is, obviously all the milk bottles and stuff, but these are the churns.

You notice the lone spot up here where the No.

10 Daisy Churn is missing.

That spot will stay there until we get that number 10, but these are the churns that Gordon just, I mean, we love, we would take these two when we would go to Dairy Days and would just take them and put that cream in and kids would watch all of the cream turned to butter.

What we've got here, which is really an interesting machine to me, and couldn't you just see a kid just loving this you sit on the seat there this a farmer oh just outside of virga's had this you sit on the seat there, and then you, of course, attach this to the cow for the milking.

Then, it's got the hand, you would take your feet like that and it would go, and it was just kind of a way that you didn't have to use your hands.

You got to build up those leg muscles a lot.

A lot of people talk about "Okay Gordon, why do you have a Maytag washing machine in your butter museum?"

Well, it's not just the mixers that we get now that have all the attachments with the pasta.

Back then, they figured that out, you put an attachment onto the washing machine, and it'll churn your butter!

So Gordon got one of those Maytags that had the attachment to churn the butter, and then, of course, the information regarding it.

That was a lot of fun for him to obtain that.

We are in the overflow room, is what I would call it, because this room here was created when Gordon had too many things in the other room that we were in.

It's just created a nice area to add some extra things, some of the bigger things.

This cream separator right here is, actually, there's only 2 of them in the whole United States that anybody knows about.

When Gordon obtained it, the people that he got it from said "You know, it should actually be in a museum."

Then cream carts and the cream cans and of course, more cheese boxes, but one fun thing that we have here is an old Vergas Street Light.

This was the actual street light, there's a photograph here with it that shows people would go around at night and they would light those lights up on the streets, by hand again, of course, it wasn't an electric thing.

I think I mentioned the Land O' Lakes Creamery Christmas ornaments and things too, and so he got into that with Land O' Lakes and just really supporting our area dairy people and dairy production areas.

So, all the milk bottles here, too, so it's a nice spot, and of course, I think a lot of people understand what this is, because I think that a lot of people have in their homes, it was one of the old coolers, too so those are kind of fun.

Here we are in Gordon's overflow room, but what it was able to create in here was just another nice display case, a beautiful display case, and this one here obviously has always been one of my favorites, because it's the dome butter dishes.

These are very valuable, very beautiful, intricate pieces.

I don't think that you would find these on your typical farm table for lunch every day, but if the family was coming for a Sunday dinner, or some special event, you know they would use a butter dish something like this.

Gordon was, like I said earlier, always very loyal to the Vergas Creamery and the people that worked at the creamery.

This gentleman right here donated, his family donated, this because he was the Creamery Manager for a number of years.

Then what you've got there is items that were actually used in the creamery, so he liked to be able to showcase those items, but he also liked to be able to showcase the person, who helped promote dairy, who helped work in the creamery, and was part of that passion of, let us preserve what has been created, so if you come down to Gordon's Dairy and Butter Museum, you cannot walk away without one of his books.

This chronicles a lot of different information, a lot of different pictures, and one of the old Vergas butter dairy boxes.

They're here and you're welcome to take one home with you, so that when you go home, you can, when somebody sees them, they can say "Oh, where's that?"

you can say "Well, it's located in the Vergas State Bank, Lower Level, you can go check it out because it's a piece of history that we just want to preserve."

You come down here, and you just kind of step back in time, you just take a little bit of time and if you do a little bit of reading, you just understand that Oh, man, somebody actually 60 years ago was handling that butter dish and were putting butter on the table for their family.

There's something really cool about that.

The bank is open every day during the week, Monday through Friday, 9:00 nine o'clock until 5:00 o'clock.

There's somebody here that can let you come down here and let you wander around and just go back in time and and enjoy it.

I can't believe that his family and his kids and people who knew him walk down here without feeling the presence.

I'm glad that he did it, I mean, it was interesting, and he was really proud of it and I think the whole family's proud that he did it because it started out with one churn and turned into 600 items, so, yeah, we're proud of him.

Thanks for watching.

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Production funding of Common Ground was made possible, in part, by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their 2nd century of service to the community.

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