Vikings had a mean streak? Yes, but they weren’t all bad

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This article was published 19/03/2011 (5690 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Winnipeg students will get a chance to unleash their inner Viking.

And before the students in Grades 3 and 5 think it means they’ll have a chance to attack and pillage European communities, they’ll soon discover Vikings have been wrongly stereotyped through the ages.

“We want these children to have a lasting impression about Viking life as it was rather than the stereotyped image,” Selma Parsons, president of the Scandinavian Centre, said on Friday.

“Yes, we have reenactment-quality swords, shields and chain mail, but we also want to show them they were traders, settlers, and explorers.”

But Parsons said that doesn’t mean the Vikings weren’t above pillaging European communities. Vikings were at their peak from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.

“They just happened to be much better than anyone else, so they got the reputation,” she said.

“They just happened to know where the money was and they knew it was in monasteries and they weren’t Catholic, so they didn’t care.”

The school program, called ‘Everyone wants to be a Viking,’ was the idea of Natalie Denesovych, the honorary Norwegian consul for Manitoba.

Denesovych said the program is modelled after the successful one she saw at the Manitoba Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre.

“We are taking the second floor and recreating a Chieftain’s Lodge with furniture replicas and drapery panels painted to look like planking,” she said.

“All of our animators will be in costume and we will have little Viking vests for the children to wear. That’s part of the experience — to put something on.”

Denesovych said the program, which will host three schools on May 9 and 10, is currently a pilot program, but if successful will run for a week in the spring and another week in the fall. “Culture builds communities,” she said.

“This is an opportunity for the Scandinavian community to build and grow their culture.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca