Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Norskedalen Nature & Heritage Center
The 400-acre “Norwegian Valley” is a hodgepodge nature and heritage center in Coon Val-
ley, approximately 16 miles southeast of La Crosse. Beginning as an outdoor arboretum
laboratory, it grew to include many surrounding Norwegian and Bohemian homesteader
lands. Also on site you'll find the Skumsrud Heritage Farm. Sankt Hans Dag, an ancient
Scandinavian summer solstice festival, jamborees, and classes in ecology and Norwegian
language are great. Most popular are the nature trails at
Norskedalen Nature & Heritage
Center
(608/452-3424,
www.norskedalen.org
,
grounds open daily May-Nov. 1, limited
hours Nov.-Apr., $6).
Hamlin Garland Homestead
Six miles east of La Crosse is
West Salem,
known for no other reason than as the
Hamlin
Garland Homestead
(357 Garland St., 608/786-1399, tours: 1pm-4:30pm daily Memori-
al Day weekend-Labor Day, $2), the boyhood home of Wisconsin native and Pulitzer
Prize-winner Hamlin Garland. Born in 1860, Garland was among the first—if not
the
first—writers to use Midwest farm life as a central focal point, in particular creating strong
female characters. Writing mostly as a social realist, he later turned to a style that pulled no
punchesinitsgrimland-andhuman-scapesoftheMidwest;heundoubtedlyhadaprofound
effect on August Derleth. Virtually unread in his lifetime until being awarded the Pulitzer
Prize in 1922, he is now remembered mostly for
A Son of the Middle Border,
a bittersweet
fictionalization of growing up on a coulee country farm.
