THE LONG RETURN
The Long Return is a collection of essays, field notes, and reflections written from Norway and beyond.
More than a century and a half after my great-great-grandfather left Norway for America, I now find myself building a life in the country he once called home.
In April 1861, he made the journey from the family farm in Marifjøra, Sogn og Fjordane, to Bergen, where he boarded a ship bound for Amerika.
After serving in the 15th Wisconsin, an all-Scandinavian regiment during the Civil War, he eventually settled along the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, where I was born and raised.
In 2026, several timelines meet. It has been ten years since my first visit to Norway and five years since I left full-time life in the United States.
Part field journal and part personal practice, this site explores what it means to live between two landscapes. I write about place, migration, music, nature, loss, and the process of building a life across landscapes.
Notes from a life between landscapes.
