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Last updated 10.13.05

Coon Valley, Wisconsin  

These two photos are from The Carl Guell Slide Collection at the Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh

My present research project is a study of spoken Norwegian dialects in the area around the two small towns Coon Valley and Westby in Vernon County, Wisconsin. This area was settled by Norwegians around 1850, and the Norwegian language is still used, especially by the older generation. This project was started in 1992, when I spent the fall semester doing fieldwork, and hopefully it will be completed some day....

My first study within this field was on the Trønder dialects in Minnesota, North and South Dakota. The fieldwork for this project was done in 1986-87, when I spent months on the road looking for Americans speaking the dialects from the Norwegian communities Verdal, Stjørdal and Meråker in Nord-Trøndelag. This study was completed in 1990.

• Read about the Norwegian language in America. At the moment you will find two articles here.  The first article here, "Norsk i Amerika" / "The Norwegian Language in America", was written for The National Library of Norway's site  The promise of America.  The other one, "A bilingual community and a reseach problem" is a draft, so please do not quote. The final version of this article is available in P. S. Ureland: Global Eurolinguistics (2001).  
• Listen to the Norwegian Americans talking. Here you will find some examples from the material I collected in 1987 and 1992. These files are in Real Audio format, and you can download the player from the net.
• Look at pictures from Coon Valley and Westby. These scanned slides are of a rather poor quality - hopefully I will get access to a better scanner soon....

The Bekkum homestead, Norskedalen, Coon Valley

• Norskedalen Nature & Heritage Center
• La Crosse Tribune (A newspaper published in La Crosse, Wisconsin)
• Westby Times (A weekly newspaper published in Westby, Wisconsin)
• Images of Wisconsin. A page presented by Todd and Mark Fonstad. Here you can find photos of Coon Valley, the driftless landscape around Coon Valley and the ski jump outside Westby.
• Westby on Internet. A presentation of the town made by students at the local high school.

Westby, Wisconsin

Outside Westby

• Norwegians in America This is a searchable bibliographical data base, located at the National library. This base contains more then 40,000 references to Norwegians in America for the period 1825 - 1930, and the material was collected by Thor M. Anderson.
• The 2000 U.S. census. The U.S. Census Bureau home page is worth a visit.
• The Switchboard, an electronical phone and address directory for the US on the net, might also be of some help.
• Ancestry's Social Security Death Index. As the name suggests, this is a site where you can look for dead Americans
• The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Eastern States, General Land Office (GLO) Records Automation web site. This site provides live database and image access to more than two million federal land title records for the Eastern Public Land States, dating back to 1820.
• U.S. Surname Distribution On this site, you can enter a surname and you'll see a map of the United States showing the distribution of people with this surname within 50 different states. This database contains the 50,000 most common surnames in the United States.
• Immigrant Languages Bibliography presented by the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Bekkum homestead, Norskedalen, Coon Valley

• Norwegian-American Historical Association At this site you will also find some online versions of NAHA's first publications 
• SASS Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study
• The Norwegian-American Bygdelagenes Fellesraad
• Hardanger Fiddle Association of America
• Sons of Norway
• St. Olaf College
• Department of Scandinavian Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison
• Norsk Utvandrermuseum The Norwegian Emigrant Museum, Hamar
• The Norwegian Emigration Center
• Vesterheim Museum
• Norwegian-American Genealogical Association
• 
  The Spirit of the Vikings RealAudio and wav-files of Norwegian radio broadcasts in USA during the war. Most of these recordings are of famous Norwegians, but there are also a few Norwegian-Americans, for example Einar Haugen, NBR

From the Skumsrud farm, Norskedalen, Coon Valley

• The American West A site devoted to the West and its history. Of special interest here is the Swedish-American section, and especially Ulf Beijbom's article about emigration from Sweden
• The American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Bishop Hill This is one of the most famous Swedish settlements, located in Illinois.
• The Emigration from Iceland to America
• Nordic Notes on the Net Web site for Americans with ancestors from the Scandinavian countries
• Nordic Times Online An online magazine dealing with Scandinavian-American matters
• 15th Wisconsin A site dedicated to the 15th Wisconsin, which served with distinction in the Federal Army during the American Civil War (1861-1865). It was called the Scandinavian Regiment because its soldiers were immigrants from Norway, Denmark, and Sweden.

Map Quest can be of some help for those doing field work in the U.S. On this site you will find maps, and it can also provide you with door-to-door driving directions.

• More Ole and Lena jokes 
• A Prairie Home Companion The home page of Garrison Keillor's radio show. The show is also broadcasted live in Real Audio at this site. You can also listen to stories from the "Norwegian" town Lake Wobegon