Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist, center, is pictured Tuesday after proclaiming this week as Scandinavian Heritage Week.
P-J photo by Eric Tichy
He may have a Swedish last name, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Jamestown Mayor Eddie Sundquist knows the Swedish language. A trip last week to Norway made that apparent.
Sundquist on Tuesday recounted a conversation he had with an immigration official in Norway while on vacation.
“They saw my passport and they started speaking Swedish to me,” the mayor told a crowd at Tracy Plaza outside city hall to proclaim Scandinavian Heritage Week. “I said, ‘I’m sorry sir, I don’t speak Swedish.’ He just looked at me and said, ‘But your last name is Swedish?’”
For the first time, the annual Scandinavian Folk Festival will be held this year in downtown Jamestown. To mark the occasions, flags of the five Nordic countries — Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Finland — have been placed along Third Street.
Sundquist thanked Jamestown’s American Scandinavian Heritage Foundation for organizing the events.
A ceremony Tuesday concluded with the raising of the Swedish flag at Tracy Plaza.
P-J photo by Eric Tichy
“Jamestown is truly one of the ancestral homes for our Scandinavian Americans, and our city would not be what it is today without the enormous contribution that the Scandinavian Americans have made,” Sundquist said. “It helped to form the base of industrial power that made Jamestown world-renowned and their impact is still felt today.”
This year’s festival will be held at Northwest Arena, 319 W. Third St., Jamestown, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. The arena will host vendor stalls with an array of handmade and Scandinavian-themed items. There also will be traditional Swedish food available, including meatballs, rice pudding and cucumber salad.
Other events are planned during the festival.
On Friday, the 40-foot-long Viking ship, Norseman, from Philadelphia will enter the water at McCrea Point boat landing; visitors can board the ship from 10 a.m. to noon. The ship will then sail up the Chadakoin River to lower Chautauqua Lake.
A traditional Midsommar celebration will begin in the Jamestown Public Market on Saturday at 10 a.m. near the corner of Cherry and West Third streets.
Jeffrey Kroon, president of the American Scandinavian Heritage Foundation, spoke during a brief ceremony Tuesday that, in addition to Sundquist’s proclamation, included songs and the Thule Lodge Swedish Folk Dance Team.
“We’re hoping to have a wonderful turnout,” Kroon said, later joking, “the mayor has guaranteed us good weather, indoors and out. We’re looking forward to a wonderful event.”
Don Sandy, event coordinator, thanked the city as well as some businesses and organizations for getting into the spirit of the festival. He said the Hot Spot Cafe, on the corner of East Third and Pine streets, has been selling Swedish waffles. In just two days, he said, 80 servings of the waffles had been sold.
“We thank the city,” Sandy said. “We finally have moved back downtown. Jamestown is a Swedish town. … We’re trying to involve the city as much as possible.”
Tuesday’s ceremony concluded with the raising of the Swedish flag at Tracy Plaza.
