Minot, North Dakota - Scandinavian Heritage Park, Dala Horse

Scandinavian Heritage Park is located on Broadway and 11th ave -- there is a lot to see here if you are of Scandinavian descent. The visitor center is only open until 5 pm. [diane, 07/24/2007]

The Scandinavian Heritage Park in Minot, ND, features a large Swedish Dala horse. It also has a grass-roofed Stabbur, an Olympic monument with an eternal flame (which was out when I was there), a small Danish windmill, and bronze statues of Leif Erickson and other famous Scandinavians that I had never heard of. There is a 220+ year old log house from Sweden or Norway that was disassembled, shipped to Minot, and reassembled at the Scandinavian Heritage Park, making it the oldest building in North Dakota.

When I was there construction was underway on an exact replica of an 800-year-old stave church. They did use tar paper on the roof under the wood shingles, which I am guessing is not historically accurate. [Nathan L. Forrider, 03/02/2003]

[RA: The Dala Horse could be mistaken for the one in Mora, MN. Rumor in the late 1990s was Minot was borrowing the engineering plans from a 50-ft. Dala Horse in Sweden...but what they ended up with actually looks smaller than Mora's.]