​Mikal was a brick-layer mason and Fredrik had his electrical certification.  Their plan was to work construction in the rapidly expanding cities of the Midwest and Canada while also dealing in real estate.  The lure of land ownership drove Fredrik, the son who was unable to inherit.  Single men, they were able to roam the Upper Midwest and Western Canada to wherever work was available.  Mikal’s contacts in existing Norwegian American communities helped find those jobs.  
 By this time, chain migration was well established in the Midwest.  Chainm migration is the phenomenon of existing settlers encouraging others, relatives or neighbors, to migrate to the same area where they had established a foothold.  Whole towns spoke specific Norwegian dialects.  The men learned English to conduct business outside the community but often women lived their entire lives in rural Midwest and never learned to speak English.  It is not unlike ethnic enclaves now in our cities and suburbs.  Immigrants naturally seek out those who are like them, speak the same language, eat the same foods and celebrate in similar ways.
  Mikal was well known in the area around Hixton and Whitehall Wisconsin where others from Sunnfjord were farming.  From that base, Mikal and Fredrik hired out, initially as farm workers and in the winter joined the logging crews in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.  Day laborers, they quickly learned of construction projects both in the communities near them but also in bigger towns like St. Paul, Minnesota or Chicago, Illinois.  As they moved around, they stayed in rooming houses where they met even more men like themselves seeking opportunities for advancement.  It was this itinerant lifestyle that helped them learn English and gain a wider view of American life.  Fredrik was soon traveling on his own to install electricity in commercial buildings.  Letters began to arrive back in Norway from places like Glasgow Montana and Pierre South Dakota.  
“As you will see from this letter, I am still in Montana in a small town called Glasgow.  Mikal is here, too, and we have good work both of us, he as a bricklayer and I as an electrician.  We will stay here until Christmas.  Then I may go and see the land I own.  I’m happy as long as Mikal is here….It’s in Canada we bought some lots, and it is quite impossible to sell them again because times are hard due to this terrible war.  But hopefully, it will soon be over and Canada will become just as good as before.”
Letter from Fredrik to his sister Anna in Norway.
Glasgow, Montana
October 11, 1914
 
By 1914, Fredrik pursued his belief that the best investment was in land, by staking a claim to 160 acres under the Canadian Dominion Land Act of 1872.   By then, the Dominion Land Act in Canada and the Homesteading Act in the United States had encouraged thousands of people to settle and farm in the Great Plains of North America and displace the indigenous people who had called this vast area home.                                       
 Because he was claiming land late in the homesteading era, Fredrik found that the best available land was near Swift Current, Saskatchewan, just north of Glasgow, Montana, where he had been working.  Fredrik did not seem to be concerned that there were few Norwegians among his neighbors.  His belief that wealth lay in land ownership superseded those considerations. However, he was able to commit to homesteading and hardship because he had no wife or family to provide for.  For him, at that time, it was a business decision, an investment in the future.  In order to earn title to the land, he needed to build a habitable structure, occupy it at least 6 months of every year, and clear and farm the land.   

​Mikal was a brick-layer mason and Fredrik had his electrical certification.  Their plan was to work construction in the rapidly expanding cities of the Midwest and Canada while also dealing in real estate.  The lure of land ownership drove Fredrik, the son who was unable to inherit.  Single men, they were able to roam the Upper Midwest and Western Canada to wherever work was available.  Mikal’s contacts in existing Norwegian American communities helped find those jobs.  
 By this time, chain migration was well established in the Midwest.  Chainm migration is the phenomenon of existing settlers encouraging others, relatives or neighbors, to migrate to the same area where they had established a foothold.  Whole towns spoke specific Norwegian dialects.  The men learned English to conduct business outside the community but often women lived their entire lives in rural Midwest and never learned to speak English.  It is not unlike ethnic enclaves now in our cities and suburbs.  Immigrants naturally seek out those who are like them, speak the same language, eat the same foods and celebrate in similar ways.
  Mikal was well known in the area around Hixton and Whitehall Wisconsin where others from Sunnfjord were farming.  From that base, Mikal and Fredrik hired out, initially as farm workers and in the winter joined the logging crews in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.  Day laborers, they quickly learned of construction projects both in the communities near them but also in bigger towns like St. Paul, Minnesota or Chicago, Illinois.  As they moved around, they stayed in rooming houses where they met even more men like themselves seeking opportunities for advancement.  It was this itinerant lifestyle that helped them learn English and gain a wider view of American life.  Fredrik was soon traveling on his own to install electricity in commercial buildings.  Letters began to arrive back in Norway from places like Glasgow Montana and Pierre South Dakota.  
“As you will see from this letter, I am still in Montana in a small town called Glasgow.  Mikal is here, too, and we have good work both of us, he as a bricklayer and I as an electrician.  We will stay here until Christmas.  Then I may go and see the land I own.  I’m happy as long as Mikal is here….It’s in Canada we bought some lots, and it is quite impossible to sell them again because times are hard due to this terrible war.  But hopefully, it will soon be over and Canada will become just as good as before.”
Letter from Fredrik to his sister Anna in Norway.
Glasgow, Montana
October 11, 1914
 
By 1914, Fredrik pursued his belief that the best investment was in land, by staking a claim to 160 acres under the Canadian Dominion Land Act of 1872.   By then, the Dominion Land Act in Canada and the Homesteading Act in the United States had encouraged thousands of people to settle and farm in the Great Plains of North America and displace the indigenous people who had called this vast area home.                                       
 Because he was claiming land late in the homesteading era, Fredrik found that the best available land was near Swift Current, Saskatchewan, just north of Glasgow, Montana, where he had been working.  Fredrik did not seem to be concerned that there were few Norwegians among his neighbors.  His belief that wealth lay in land ownership superseded those considerations. However, he was able to commit to homesteading and hardship because he had no wife or family to provide for.  For him, at that time, it was a business decision, an investment in the future.  In order to earn title to the land, he needed to build a habitable structure, occupy it at least 6 months of every year, and clear and farm the land.   

​Norwegian American Immigration- A Case Study
Beyond the Norwegian-American Farm Communities.
 
 
2025 is the 200th anniversary of the first organized immigration from Norway to the United States.  Fifty-three people arrived near New York City in a sloop named the Restauration on Oct. 9, 1825.  This began a wave of emigration during which over 800,000 people left Norway for the United States, mostly in the period between 1840 and 1910.  My grandfather, Fredrik Hjelmeland was on the tail end of that big wave when he arrived in Halifax, Canada in 1910.  It is also the 100th anniversary of my grandmother Kristine and mother Odny’s immigration.  
Today, among those of us who claim Norwegian American heritage, the anniversary of the first settlers, has heightened interest in migration patterns.  We are curious about how our ancestors decided to leave.  Did they plan to settle somewhere specific?  What did they know about the land they were headed to, the climate, the topography, the soil?  Were they encouraged by a relative or friend that had already left?  What role did religion or politics play in their decision to leave?  How wealthy or poor were they?   
  I have been struck by the ways in which my grandparent’s experiences differ from common experiences and explanations of the time but also differ from each other’s.  In the fifteen years between Grandpa emigrating and Kristine arriving, the world around them had changed.  In the context of changing economies, a World War and the emergence of a middle class in the United States, Kristine and Fredrik brought maturity and changed family situations to their decision making.
Norwegians, including my mother’s family were like all immigrants.  They left their homes and families because of a lack of opportunities.  In Norway, three factors dominated.

• Arable land in Norway is scarce, but industrialization was hampered by the difficulties of geography, mountains and fjords, scenic but ill-suited for anything but subsistence farming, trading  and fishing. 
• Religious freedom-Christianity, specifically Lutheranism was the state church, which meant that the local government was closely tied up with who the government chose as pastor for the community.  Quakers, Haugean pietists and other Protestants who espoused lay leadership were moved to emigrate rather than resist both the government and their church.  Other immigrants simply could not be bothered with the strict rules of the church.  Only 25% of Norwegian emigrants stayed with the Lutheran Church in the United States.
• Education was limited and ended for most with confirmation.  This lack of education limited the economic prospects of fisherman and farmers.  Limiting education assured the upper class a protected status as they could afford to educate their children beyond basic reading and writing.  

Fredrik, my grandfather, was motivated to emigrate mostly by the idea of land.  The youngest of three sons, he came from a family that owned a small farm in Bygstad near the Dale fjord on the western coast of Norway.  Land ownership put his family a step above husmenn, tenant farmers, in social position and wealth.  Husmenn families often were those who emigrated for opportunities that owning land would afford them. 
Because his older brother Mikal would inherit the family dairy farm, Fredrik knew he would need to find work off the farm. By law the farm went to the oldest son in the family. Dividing the farm into smaller parcels of land for inheritance purposes was not permitted.  If Fredrik were to remain farming, he would either have to be able to buy scarce farmland or become a husmann on someone else’s land.  Neither option suited him. 
By the early 1900’s, industrialization and new communication and transportation services were drawing young people from the farms to Bergen and then Kristiania, now Oslo.  Fredrik was among those who saw their future in learning new skills.  In 1909, he earned his certification in electricity from the Kristiania Technical Institute.  To travel across the country and get certified in a technology that no one in his home area had access to, was a bold move for a farmer’s son from a small coastal village.  Fredrik had the vision and drive to know that this was a technology that he wanted to be a part of.  He was motivated to get the education he needed to acquire land.  His time in the city introduced him to more merchants and businessmen who were part of the small but emerging middle class of Norway.  He also saw a way of life that was not as bound by the pietism of his home.  Desire for land, education in a skill and a vision of different ways of life, all made Fredrik ready to emigrate.
While he was in Kristiania, his brother Mikal had come home from America with tales of opportunities for a young person who was willing to work hard. Because their family was still on the farm, Mikal had gone to America to practice his trade of bricklaying and masonry and to earn money for the day when he received ownership of the farm.  When he returned in 1908, Norway had entered a time of deep economic depression.  His hard earned money did not go as far as he had hoped.  In addition, his father was not ready to hand over the farm.  In 1910, Mikal returned to America and Fredrik accompanied him.  Both said they would return to farming in Norway after they made some money.  Only Mikal did.  

​Turning Point
 
Beginning in 1825 but concentrated between 1840 and 1920, over 1/3 of the Norwegian population emigrated to the United States.  My maternal grandparents and my infant mother were among those who came.  World War I and the 1918 influenza pandemic were turning points in diminishing the flow of immigrants but even more impactful was the U. S. Immigration Act of 1924.  
My grandfather’s story begins in 1910 at the tail end of the great influx from Norway. 
 My grandmother and mother came in 1925, among the first to arrive after the Immigration Act changed the way people apply to come to the United States dramatically.  Ellis Island was closed, and immigrants got their visas in their own countries subject for the first time to quotas.
Still, their questions were the same and held in common with many immigrants, questions of identity, community, assimilation, language, religion.  
My Grandfather, Fredrik Hjelmeland worked as a day laborer and as an electrician in construction projects as he roamed the upper Midwest from 1910 to 1923.  In between this work he homesteaded 160 acres in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.  His decisions about work and whether to return to Norway were influenced by world events but also by his status as the youngest son, unable to inherit the family farm and by his ambition.
My grandmother, Kristine Kristiansen Hjelmeland married Fredrik in Norway in 1923.  Fredrik returned to Waukegan Illinois immediately to begin work as an independent contractor.  Kristine came in 1925 with infant Odny to make a life in urban Illinois.  Kristine Finding Home is the story of her immigration and the turning points both in their individual lives but also the history of Norwegian immigration.