In partnership with the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society, I invite you to join me in May, 2023, on a trip to the land of Chloe’s ancestors!
Click the image below to see what we have planned.
We’ve partnered with Borton Overseas for our 2023 adventure. The company began in 1894 as Sunden, Vanstrum, and Co., specializing in steamship travel for Scandinavian immigrants coming to the U.S. We’ll have over a century of experience supporting our trip!
Click HERE for itinerary, pricing, and registration information.
If you have specific trip and travel questions, you may also reach out directly to Amy, Borton’s Scandinavian Specialist. amy@bortonoverseas.com 1-612-661-4634 800-843-0602
Discounts are available for members of Sons of Norway, Swedish Institute, Danish American Center, and Norway House.
For the safety and peace of mind of all, the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society kindly requests that travelers be vaccinated against Covid-19 to participate in this tour. Please keep this in mind when registering.
You’ll find more information on our dedicated trip website, including more insight into some of the places we’ll be visiting.
I’m dreaming of Norway. You too? I hope you can join us!
Click the image below to see what we have planned.
We have a Tour Norway With Kathleen website created just for the adventure! It’s your portal for trip information—hotel and destination links, a schedule of Constitution Day festivities (we’ll be in Bergen for the holiday), and more.
We’ve forged a relationship with Borton Overseas for our 2022 adventure. (Our original travel agent, who did so much to develop our plans, is enjoying a well-earned retirement.)
Borton Overseas began in 1894 as Sunden, Vanstrum, and Co., specializing in steamship travel for Scandinavian immigrants coming to the U.S. We’ll have over a century of experience supporting our trip!
Discounts are available for members of Sons of Norway, Swedish Institute, Danish American Center, and Norway House.
Note: If the pandemic presents any unexpected challenges for 2022, we will immediately contact you to discuss options. At this time, we don’t know if the Norwegian government will require vaccinations.
However, for the safety ad peace of mind of all, the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society kindly requests that travelers be vaccinated against Covid-19 to participate in this tour. Please keep this in mind when registering. The most up-to-date information regarding entry requirements will be provided as we get closer to our departure.
I’m dreaming of Norway. You too? I hope you can join us!
When I partnered with the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society and Group Travel Directors last yearto plan a trip to Norway , COVID-19 wasn’t on the radar. We forged ahead with a spring trip announcement, hopeful that we’d all feel safe traveling by May, 2021. The planning committee agreed that having something wonderful to anticipate could only brighten such difficult times.
Well, we get to enjoy that anticipation for a while longer than originally planned. I’m sure it will surprise no one to hear that the Chloe Ellefson tour to Norway has officially been postponed.
I’m as excited about this trip as ever, and we are committed to making it happen! Although we’re not announcing specific dates at this time, we hope to travel in spring, 2022.When we do arrive in Norway, we shall have special toasts all around!
If you’d like to be on our mailing list for trip-specific updates, let me know. We’re grateful for your interest and support. Please stay safe and well!
I write about special historic places in each of my Chloe Ellefson Mysteries, and nothing makes me happier than sharing them with readers.
Well, guess what?
I’ve teamed up with the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society to offer a trip to Southern Norway—the land of Chloe’s ancestors! Click the link below to see what we have in store.
When I decided on a Norwegian setting for Fiddling With Fate, the 10th volume in my Chloe Ellefson Mystery series, I chose the area that enchanted me most. Now, you can experience the Hardanger Region as well!
Important note: Although we’re making plans for a stupendous trip, no one can predict the future in these challenging times. We understand. We also know that anticipating an adventure can relieve stress! If the pandemic makes it necessary, the trip will be postponed for a year (with a possible adjustment in price), not canceled.
For more information contact:
Group Travel Directors 952-885-2133 800-747-2255 ext. 133 jtollund@gtd.org www.gtd.org
We also have a Tour Norway With Kathleen website created just for the adventure! It’s your portal for trip information, blog posts, and much more.
I am incredibly excited about this trip. I hope you can join us!
I write about special historic places in each of my Chloe Ellefson Mysteries, and nothing makes me happier than sharing them with readers.
Well, guess what?
I’ve teamed up with the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society to offer a trip to Southern Norway—the land of Chloe’s ancestors! Click the link below to see what we have in store.
When I decided on a Norwegian setting for Fiddling With Fate, the 10th volume in my Chloe Ellefson Mystery series, I chose the area that enchanted me most. Now, you can experience the Hardanger Region as well!
Important note: Although we’re making plans for a stupendous trip, no one can predict the future in these challenging times. We understand. We also know that anticipating an adventure can relieve stress! If the pandemic makes it necessary, the trip will be postponed for a year (with a possible adjustment in price), not canceled.
For more information contact:
Group Travel Directors 952-885-2133 800-747-2255 ext. 133 jtollund@gtd.org www.gtd.org
We also have a Tour Norway With Kathleen website created just for the adventure! It’s your portal for trip information, blog posts, and much more.
I am incredibly excited about this trip. I hope you can join us!
Although most of Fiddling With Fate centers on the Hardanger Folkemuseum, I also wanted to include the Voss Folkemuseum, a sister site. The museum, founded in 1917, preserves the old farmstead at Mølster (Mølstertunet). That museum has a special claim: all of the buildings at the site stand on their original locations.
Historians believe the farm at Mølster was established over a thousand years ago. In western Norway, it was once common for several small farms to be clustered together.
This drawing showing clustered farms, on exhibit at the museum, was made by historian Arne Berg.
Individual families had their own buildings and plots of land, but shared a common courtyard. In Voss, these jumbled patches didn’t start getting consolidated until about 1860.
(Diorama on exhibit at the museum.)
Two families lived at the farm until 1924, when the property was formally transferred to the folk museum.
The museum board visiting the farm in 1919. (Photo displayed at the museum.)This old postcard shows the farm perched on a hilltop. (Enerett Normanns Kunstforlag A/S Oslo)
In the book, Chloe visits the Voss Folkemuseum with a colleague. After a meeting, she’s able to enjoy a quick tour of the site:
The guide slogged across the muddy lane. “Let’s start in the barn. We’ll be out of the rain and we can see the whole farmyard from there.” She headed toward a large barn with side bays for hay and grain, and a central drive-through/threshing floor. “There have probably been two families farming here since before the Black Death in the thirteen hundreds …”
Chloe tried to listen, she really did, but on this cloudy day the deserted old homes and cowsheds and storage houses—their logs weathered almost gray, with roofs of slate or turf—seemed especially evocative.
The courtyard, as viewed from the barn.This is the barn Chloe visited.
Focus, Chloe ordered herself, but the palpable rage and joy lingering in the barn were too strong to ignore. …And from a distance, she heard a hardingfele’s irresistible call.
The barn became the setting for the 1888 fiddle competition and dance which Britta and Erik attended.
My visit to the folk museum provided lots of other details for the mystery. The oldest building is an årestove, a log house with a central open hearth, which has been dated to about 1500.
This provides another view of the type of kitchen described at the high farm, in the early years, in Fiddling With Fate
The cluster includes a more modern home (the building on the left in the photo below).
Some of the artifacts in the home helped inform my descriptions of the later years in Fiddling With Fate’s historical timeline.
The room below, in a storehouse, is similar to the one Lisbet visited with Gudrun in 1838: They climbed to the loft, where the family stored wooden chests filled with rye and barley, her mother’s silver jewelry, her father’s savings, their best clothes. Those included Lisbet’s bridal attire.
And this shows the type of bunks provided in the outbuilding for farm workers. Torhild and Gjertrud slept in a storeroom like this while working at the Hotel Utne in the 1850s.
Mr. Ernst and I visited the Voss Folkemuseum on an evocative rainy day, which turned out to provide lots of inspiration. If you have the chance to visit the Hardanger region, keep this historic site on your list!
I've worn many bonnets over the years: writer, reader, historical interpreter, curator, reenactor, naturalist, educator. I've never had a job I didn't love. How lucky is that?
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