- Loading up.

Where are we?

What are we up to?

What are we doing?

- We are headed to Norway for our next documentary.

(bright music) From Nesna with Love is the third installment in a series of "With Love" that we've done about Norwegian craft.

And it is all tied together by my family history from Norway.

So the first time we were to Nesna was during our "Built with Love" documentary filming, and we had a very tight ferry schedule for that particular shoot.

So we were only able to stay in Nesna for about 45 minutes to an hour.

This time, we actually spent a couple nights in Nesna and were able to get to know some of the community members, walk around the town, and kind of get the vibe of what it would feel like to live there.

I just really love the colorful people and the life that's in the community.

(people laugh) (soft music) When we were at the church in Nesna, we had a really special evening where a local musician was able to perform a traditional piece of music for us, and we got special permission to film inside the church.

(singing in foreign language) There was candlelight and the boat hanging from the ceiling, and we had the shoes, and it was a beautiful, reflective moment.

And also there was a statue of a really grumpy-looking priest that I don't think made the cut that I thought he was pretty hilarious.

Do you think this is the guy that wouldn't let my great-great-grandparents be married?

(soft music) So my favorite part about doing this series of documentaries is that every time we do one, we develop relationships that I think are meaningful relationships with people in Norway.

And to have that cross-cultural connection is a rare experience and something I'm really grateful for.

And I feel like we're really lucky to have that as part of our work.

One way to demonstrate that is a couple that we interviewed, Veronica and Ludwig are also LEGO enthusiasts.

- At this apartment, the old doctor office.

- They have a room in their house that they've built an entire fantasy world of LEGOs in, and they've got all these little scenes, and they post them on Facebook.

And about six months after we were visiting with them, they incorporated me, Kris, and Ben, the Postcards crew, into their LEGO scene.

And to be part of their LEGO community in Nesna, Norway, is surprising and super interesting.

And I think we were all honored to be part of that.

(soft music) When we were in the hotel in Nesna, it was after a long day of filming, and we were eating a super late dinner, and there was one other party in this bar restaurant.

A guy from the party was so moved that we were telling a story about Nesna lobbens that he took the time to share his own personal childhood story about getting Nesna lobbens for Christmas and being super disappointed that it wasn't something more posh than a pair of Nesna lobbens.

- I was trying to be happy.

All you can see, you are not happy when you are 14 years old to get a pair of shoes, especially not, that not Nesna lobben.

- Just the way that the shoes connected us to so many people as we traveled through that part of Norway.

The Nesna lobben is actually basically the town mascot of Nesna.

So it is their cultural heritage.

They have it on beers and T-shirts, and everybody knows about the shoes.

It's like a point of cultural pride for them, just like the lutefisk is to the town of Madison, Minnesota.

So it's interesting to see the parallels between the two Norwegian communities, one in Minnesota and one in Norway.

I think the deeper we dive into different cultures, we can see more similarities than differences in people that are even across the world from us.

(bright music) Nesna lobben were actually an economic opportunity for women to be able to earn an income from home and work in a time that that wasn't necessarily common in society.

So that was kind of cool that it was an early feminist movement and impressive that Nesna has been such an inclusive community for so long.

(soft music) One of the most rewarding parts about doing these documentaries is we've been able to establish a relationship with the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa, and Laurann Gilbertson, who has been able to share all of her knowledge with us about the artifacts that we've brought in and shown us some of the vaults at the museum.

It's been a wonderful relationship to have, and I think it's added a great dimension to our documentaries.

(soft music) When people watch this documentary, I just hope they come away with an interest for their own history and where certain artifacts may have come from in their family.

Since doing these documentaries, I've had multiple distant family members reach out with different artifacts that they are hoping to pass on, but they don't have anyone they know of that has an interest to preserve or know about the history.

So if you can become that person in your family that collects the stories and the artifacts and preserves these moments in time, I think if you don't do it, it just gets lost and it's gone forever.

So I think even if you take out your cell phone and record the older people in your family and their memories, I would hope that anyone watching this would be excited to learn more about where they came from and how they can help preserve the stories of the people that came before them.

(soft music) (screen whooshes) (soft music) - [Narrator] Postcards is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen, on behalf of Shalom Hill Farm, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

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West Central Initiative empowers communities with resources, funding, and support for a thriving region.

More at wcif.org.

(instrumental music)