Fridtjof Nansen—Norwegian Scientist, Explorer and Humanitarian Worker

Oak Leaves Newsletter of the ELS Historical Society Volume 18 February 2015 Issue 4 Dietsche who works with the mission in Chile. Also in this issue: These students gave firsthand accounts of how •In Bjug’s Footsteps Over the Chilkoot they and their families spend Christmas Eve and Trail by Mark O. Harstad Christmas Day. •Fridtjof Nansen—Norwegian scientist, explorer and humanitarian worker Ottesen Museum Christmas Open House 2014 Christmas in Chile and Peru by Becky DeGarmeaux A record 54 guests came to the In the Church Basement Room, guests sang Ottesen Museum on Christmas carols in Spanish. Bethany Seminary December 9, 2014 to students Daniel Ruiz and Andrew Soule were tour the Museum and joined by Bethany College students Madelaine learn a little about the Smith, Leah Kurth, and Christmas customs in Olivia Lee in leading the the Peruvian and singing of “From Heav- Chilean mission en Above,” “Joy to the field. World,” “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” and “Silent In the building’s Night.” Between hymns, board room, lists of Seminarian Ruiz read the congregations sat portions of the Christ- alongside pictures mas Gospel in Spanish. featuring the mem- bers of the vari- Of course there were treats ous congrega- to eat and drink as well. tions. A flyer Marge Lillo signs the guest book. Missionary Tim Erickson was available and his wife Ellen gracious- which described ly sent pan de pascua from how Christmas is celebrated in the two countries. Chile—a cross between A special feature was a video display of articles German stollen and Italian written by the English students of Miss Chelsea panetone. Mrs. Kathy Bruss — Oak Leaves – Page 1 — provided Peruvian nected to a farm called Harstad near the village of manjar blanco with a Valle in south central Norway, the area known as cooked sweetened Setesdal. His father’s name was Aanond. He was condensed milk fill- baptized Bjug Aanondson. ing. To drink, guests had a choice between 1861 The family emigrated to America and a Chilean-style fruit resided first in the Fox River Settlement near Ot- punch or Peruvian hot tawa and Seneca, Illinois, and later in Harmony, drinking chocolate flavored Fillmore County, Minnesota. Bjug mastered Eng- with cinnamon and cloves. lish by working for American farmers as a teenager and came to speak the language without an accent. The tentative theme for the 2015 Open House is “ELS 1865 He left his home in Harmony, Minnesota, Christmas Celebrations to enroll at Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. On the Across the U.S.A.” Watch advice of the college president he began to use for further announcements Harstad as his last name instead of Aanondson. once the date and theme are Several of his siblings adopted the same last name. formally announced. ▪ 1871 Upon graduation from Luther College he enrolled at Concordia Theological Seminary, St. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Louis, Missouri, where his chief mentor was Dr. C. F. W. Walther, for whose influence he remained In Bjug’s Footsteps grateful the rest of his life. Over the Chilkoot Trail 1874 Upon graduation from seminary he was assigned by the Norwegian Synod of the Evangel- by Mark O. Harstad ical Lutheran Church in America (“the Old Syn- od”) to serve as missionary among immigrants in During the five days of July 25-29, 2014, one the Red River Valley of the North. Working from grandson, three great-grandchildren, and three a home base near Mayville, North Dakota, he was great-great-grandchildren of the Rev. Bjug instrumental in organizing 17 congregations and Aanondson Harstad (1848-1933) plodded their several schools among the Norwegian immigrants way through environments consisting of rain for- who were pouring into the area. He also came to est, steep slopes, rugged boulder fields, treeless serve as president of the Minnesota District of the alpine landscapes, and boreal forest along the 33- Norwegian Synod. mile Chilkoot Trail from Dyea, Alaska, to Lake Bennett in British Columbia. Their purpose was 1877 He married Guro Omlid who had come to commemorate and develop an appreciation for from his home village an interesting aspect of Norwegian Lutheran of Valle in Norway. Church History in America, and the heroic efforts Eleven children were of an ancestor who demonstrated his devotion to born to this union, the work which he had been called to do. The eight living to full project had been promoted by the ELS Historical adulthood. The Society. youngest was ELS Pastor Adolph M. Some biographical information about Bjug Harstad. Harstad is in order. 1880s When the A Bjug Harstad Chronology to 1899 theological controversy over conver- 1848 Bjug was born into a large, impoverished sion and election family on a plot of ground called Gangshei, con- raged among the — Oak Leaves – Page 2 — Norwegian Lutherans, he remained a staunch 1899 After a year and a half of effort in getting supporter of the “grace alone” principle as taught to the gold fields, staking claims, attempting to by Dr. Walther, and defended by older Norwegian work them, and then finding ways to earn enough colleagues in the ministry such as U. V. Koren, J. to make it home again, in June, Bjug took passage A. Ottesen, and H. A. Preus. F. A. Schmidt, the in- on a steamer headed down the Yukon River to its stigator of the controversy, targeted Bjug as one of mouth. At the port of St. Michael he boarded an his opponents, someone to be deposed from office ocean-going vessel for home, surprising his fami- for opposing Schmidt’s doctrinal compromises. ly by his arrival on July 20, 1899. The goal of finding gold had not been achieved, but other 1891 Bjug and family moved to the Puget benefits came to Bjug. He returned home a Sound area of the state of Washington, having healthy man, and had demonstrated to creditors been called to start a school for the thousands of and others that he was committed to accepting Norwegian immigrant families living in that area. responsibility for all that had transpired in connec- 1893 This year marked the onset of “The Panic tion with the founding of Pacific Lutheran. of 1893,” the worst economic downturn to that The action taken by Bjug Harstad and those asso- point in U.S. History. ciated with him in attempting to solve the finan- 1894 The first building was completed and the cial problems of a church-related school by going first students enrolled in Pacific Lutheran Academy in search of gold is a remarkable story. It reveals in the fall of 1894. Financial support weakened that determined, pioneer spirit which character- dramatically in the economic downturn. The school ized the generation of the immigrants. They were faced huge debt. It appeared the whole project of convinced they had a heritage worth preserving, starting a school would collapse in failure. and that no amount of effort should be spared in carrying out that work. If they didn’t work at it, 1896 Reports arrived of a significant discovery the result would be that they and their descendants of gold in Canada’s Yukon Territory. The “stampede” would simply melt away into the general religious to the Yukon began. The wheels began to turn in environment of America. Their distinguishing the minds of many that Yukon gold could solve theological heritage would be lost forever. The financial problems even for church-related schools. establishment of educational institutions was es- 1898 In February Bjug and several associates sential to that work, but the difficulty of building from the Tacoma area, after much planning and and maintaining them in the face of economic acquisition of supplies, set out for the Yukon by challenges was great. the most common route. They were among the Bjug and his associates had a deep sense of respon- approximately 100,000 who attempted to reach sibility for what they had done in getting a building the gold fields, a significant number of whom completed, assembling a faculty, and admitting the were Scandinavians. They traveled by steamer on first students in 1894. They had taken some criti- the “Inside Passage” from Puget Sound to the cism for tending toward the extravagant in the five- ports of Skagway and Dyea in the Alaska Pan- story building they had put up. They wanted to be handle. From Dyea they known as trustworthy men of common sense with made the arduous 33-mile an obligation to those who had called them to do portage over the Chilkoot the work of getting the school started. They Trail to the chain of lakes demonstrated that by their willingness to engage at the headwaters of the in heroic efforts to save their school. Yukon River. From there they built boats and float- Historians are vitally interested in how we know ed down the Yukon to the about any particular happening in history, how vicinity of Dawson City and staked their claims good and reliable the sources available to us are. in the valleys of creeks and rivers flowing into We have a good record of Bjug’s expedition to the the Yukon and Klondike Rivers. Yukon. He wrote letters home regularly and they were published in Pacific Herald, a Norwegian — Oak Leaves – Page 3 — language church periodical. Because of the unre- Decades rolled by and in 2003 I found myself a liable nature of the mail service in the rugged, member of the Board of the ELS Historical Soci- frontier conditions of the gold trail, some of the ety and became involved in planning programs letters were unfortunately lost. But enough re- which might stimulate interest in the history of the main that a very clear picture emerges for us of ELS.

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