Having to drive two hours from campus in order to spend the night with your class at some longhouse may seem like a task that many would pass on. For future History Seminar students, I would advise against skipping this experience. Not only did our class bond; we experienced history in a new light. It […]
Experiential archaeology has been, by far, the most interesting way I have learned history. Our history seminar, with Professor Heidi Sherman, took a field trip to a Viking longhouse in Stratford, WI. The long drive was worth our while. We arrived to the home of Owen and Elspeth Christianson, the Viking enthusiast couple welcomed us […]
During my stay at the Viking longhouse, I had discovered a new found appreciation for modern food. Not just in terms of our spoiled pallets and the wide range of rich flavors available to us, but also just how accessible food is in this day and age. Contrary to the few minutes it would take […]
What does it mean to live like a Viking for a day? It means self-sufficiency, it means independence, and it means having pride in what you do. Over this last weekend, I had the opportunity to live like a Viking for a day. During this experience, I had to help prepare all the food […]
An experience of the History Seminar, which stands out from the others is the one night, and one day, spent at the reconstructed Viking longhouse, as a component of experimental archaeology. As a former student of Professor Sherman’s Viking history class, I had experienced two dimensional representations of the longhouses and other architecture and artifacts. […]
As a Humanistic Studies student, understanding history and being able to put yourself into that time period, is a huge part of the learning. Hands on experiences are ultimately one of the best ways a person can gain knowledge about a specific time period and the people of that time. Taking a trip to the […]
During my trip to the Viking longhouse, I got the excellent chance to experience what life was like for people during the time period of the Vikings. Some of the things I got to experience personally were wire weaving, blacksmithing, and woodworking. Another experience that was present during my time at the longhouse but I […]
The Viking Longhouse has been around for centuries. Recreations have been built not only across Europe but transversely throughout the world. The History Seminar class was fortunate enough to be able to spend part of the weekend at a Viking Longhouse recreation near Marshfield, Wisconsin. During my stay at the Viking Longhouse I learned […]
To say the least, the field trip to the reconstructed Viking Longhouse was an experience well worth having. Coming from this author, this statement means A LOT because when one is not a camper, by any means, as am I, the idea of sleeping in a tent, cooking food completely from scratch, and using an […]
For the fall semester of 2015, we the students of History 480 embarked on our Viking longhouse trip to gain a first hand experience in experimental archeology, which happens to be the main focus of our seminar this year. Now instead of taking a more formal approach of sitting in a classroom and lecturing about […]
Our class trip to the Viking Camp was very interesting. I appreciated the hands on approach and it was nice to get out of the classroom and away from the textbooks and videos we are often shown and experience some of the things that Vikings had during the Iron Age. Being able to see and […]
During the class trip we took to the viking longhouse in Marshfield for the Seminar in History class, I was better able to understand different aspects of medieval life. Throughout the trip we participated in several hands on activities and were able to learn from experiences that I may not have without doing so. We learned […]
Our weekend of “Viking Camp” at the longhouse in Marshfield had great appeal to me, both as a student of ancient and medieval history as well as someone who spent six weeks in Iceland this past summer and was eager for more opportunities to connect with Viking heritage. Thankfully, my expectations for our time with […]
On Friday and Saturday, September 25th and 26th, the History Seminar class had the amazing opportunity to spend time in a reconstructed Viking Longhouse. This Longhouse was near the Big Eau Pine Flowage northeast of Marshfield, WI. As a class, we were able to participate in many different activities throughout the day and night we […]
After visiting the recreation Viking longhouse built by Owen and Elspeth Christianson in central Wisconsin this past weekend, the effectiveness of hands-on learning and experience really sticks out. We were at the longhouse a day and a half which was filled with events and activities that were to show some of the daily activities of […]
In all honesty, I did have some reservations about the Viking Longhouse fieldtrip because this period of history is most definitely not my specialty or specific area of history that I study. But I knew I had to go into this with an open mind because this was an experience that would be once in […]
My experience at the Longhouse was amazing. The experience made me feel very involved in the Viking lifestyle. I really enjoyed seeing all of the things the Christianson’s had. They taught us how to weave on a warp weighted loom, how to cook in a bronze pot, how to make watertight buckets by learning how […]