Midwest Viking Festival

by Heidi Sherman

Midwest Viking Festival, October 4th & 5th, 2024 | 10am–4pm | Free,                                          UW-Green Bay 2420 Nicolet Dr., Green Bay, WI

UW-Green Bay is the proud host of the annual Midwest Viking Festival which explores Scandinavian history and the daily life of the region from a thousand years ago. Located at the Viking House grounds north of the Wood Hall lot, the festival celebrates the craft traditions, food, stories and many other aspects of medieval Scandinavia (Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden). Visitors will be welcome to wander a Viking market, and visit with metalsmiths, glass beadmakers, woodworkers, ceramicists – all demonstrating how things were make a thousand years ago. Performers will tell stories from the Viking Age, demonstrate battle tactics, speak and sing about runes, and talk writing about the Viking Age. Guests will also be welcome to tour the Viking House with its builder, Owen Christianson. We will also have activities for kids, inclusing a Viking passport quest. A food truck will be at the festival!

Professor Sherman received her PhD (History) from the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities), where she studied medieval history and archaeology. She has published widely on aspects of the material culture of medieval Russia (flax and linen production and trade, glassmaking) and on the Viking-age site of Staraia Ladoga. At UW-Green Bay, she teaches courses about the Vikings, medieval history and experiential archaeology. She is also the co-director (with Alison Gates) of the UW-Green Bay Flax Project.