Two artists, one unifying heritage CUTLINE; The smaller statue of a rugged Viking sculpted by Craig Bergsgaard, formerly of Spring Grove, was made into a full-sized statue that will be dedicated Saturday. John Weiss/The Post-Bulletin government Two artists, one unifying heritage CUTLINE; The smaller statue of a rugged Viking sculpted by Craig Bergsgaard, formerly of Spring Grove, was made into a full-sized statue that will be dedicated Saturday. John Weiss/The Post-Bulletin By John Weiss The Post-Bulletin SPRING GROVE -- When Joseph Langland and Craig Bergsgaard met Wednesday at the Bake Shoppe in downtown Spring Grove, they shook hands and hugged. The two artists from two generations of Spring Grove Norwegians had never met before, but they went to the same rural school, saw the same trout streams, knew the same families. And their lives, and art, were deeply touched by that upbringing. This week, the two returned to their roots and brought with them a poem and bronze sculpture to honor that past. Langland, now of Amherst, Mass., will read "In Quest of Ourselves," while Bergsgaard, now of Littleton, Colo., will unveil "Quest," which is a full-sized bronze statue of a Viking warrior. Langland, 83, has taught college in many cities, and has written books of poems about his travels. Yet his poems retain images of his upbringing on the Langland family farm eight miles south of Spring Grove. He writes of gnomes, the old willow tree on his farm, Highland Township and rosemaled trunks. He attended Bekkan School for eight years before going to Spring Grove High School, graduating in 1934. In those growing years, he wrote poems, hundreds of them. All bad, he said. "I imagined I was a poet," he said. "I started writing junk, all junk." The poet in the cave Still, he wrote, it was something inside him pushing him on. He would go to a bluff near the farm, climb part way up, slide through a hole and into a cave where he stashed candles, matches, pencil stubs and paper. And he would write. "I imagined I was the poet in this cave," he said. By the time he was 18, his output went past 1,000. "They all got thrown away in a trash barrel in the wood shed or got burned," Langland said. There was no stress on poetry on his farm, but his mother and father had been to college, he said. And he loved the rhythm of words. When he went the mile to Bekkan School, he would often skip the whole way, he said. He went away to college, took time out to fight in World War II -- where a brother was killed -- and then came back to teach writing and literature at the University of Wyoming. From there, he went east to the University of Massachusettes-Amherst. He also taught at other major colleges, though he came back to the Spring Grove area each summer to see the farm and feel the land. After all, part of his heart, and his roots, are in the farm his family has worked for 133 years. Throughout his journeys, he continued to write poetry, though no longer junk. He has been published in anthologies and has read his works throughout America and several other countries. In August, he was involved in a serious car accident and spent some of his recovery in Florida where his brother, Walter, came to see him. With Walter Langland came a request that Joseph write a poem for the statue dedication. He said yes and wrote "In Quest of Ourselves" about Norwegian history. In it, Langland writes of fjords, the Norwegian mountains and looking westward to the new world. Bergsgaard's journey, like Langland's, began south of Spring Grove. He attended Bekkan School for a year before going to other schools. Bergsgaard, 47, left Spring Grove to be in the military for seven years and came back from 1977 through 1984. "The town got a little small for me," he said, and he moved west to the Denver area, taking with him so much of growing up in Spring Grove. Creative juices flow When he got married, he decided to switch jobs to have more time at home. The creative juices started flowing, he said. He carved wooden carousel animals and wanted to get good enough so that he could get paid for his work and that work would be in bronze, his favorite medium. His inspiration for doing a smaller version of the "Quest" statue was snippets of growing up in Spring Grove and its Norwegian history. He sent a photo of the smaller "Quest" to Spring Grove, and people in his hometown embraced the idea. It was the smaller one that held so much of himself. "All the soul, all the heartfelt (feeling) went into the making of the small one with the idea it could be an opportunity to enlarge it," he said. Enlarging it was mostly a technical job. He donated his time for making the full-sized work. To get the right words on the plaque that goes with the statue, he turned to Langland. Over the phone, they discussed just the right words for the four short lines. They finally agreed on: "In eternal honor of our ancestors Who left behind so much, Who started here with so little, That we might have everything." And on Wednesday, when Bergsgaard came to Spring Grove bringing his "Quest" statue to town, the two met at the bakery. Though from two generations, they had so much to talk about, for they are united by growing up in Spring Grove. Houston County Langland, dedication sculpture Viking Bergsgaard. SPRING GROVE Norwegian heritage, immigration Park. Syttende Mai celebration Gray, Story 1 of 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 05/19/2000 Author: weiss Publication: pb Category: gov Illustration: p -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1999 Post-Bulletin Company, L.L.C. 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