Cryptid Corner, Episode Two

Nordic Seducers

Welcome back to Cryptid Corner! Today, world-renowned cryptozoologist Dr. Veronica L. Raptor of the infamous Innsmouth Institute is here to talk about about creatures you might encounter in the Scandinavian woods.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

EMILY C. SKAFTUN: If you think Nordic cryptozoology is synonymous with trolls, you’re in for a treat today. Dr. Raptor is here to tell us about not one but two monsters—can I call them that?—inhabiting the wild north.

VERONICA L. RAPTOR: In this case, I’d say monstrosity is in the eye of the beholder. Or the attitude of the beholder, at least. If you are polite to huldrefolk, they can bestow on you great fortune. But if you are unkind…

Theodor Kittelsen, “Huldra.”
Continue reading “Cryptid Corner, Episode Two”

Cryptid Corner, Episode One

The Rougarou

Welcome to Cryptid Corner, an interview series with world-renowned cryptozoologist Dr. Veronica L. Raptor of the infamous Innsmouth Institute—who will offer you an up-close look at monsters from around the world. Among other accomplishments, Dr. Raptor has tracked the migration of jackalopes across the Sonoran Desert, made first contact with yetis displaced by climate change, and co-authored Silent & Deadly, a ground-breaking dictionary of Siren Sign Language.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Mangy-looking rougarou standing among the skulls of people it eats.
A rougarou in the New Orleans zoo.
photo: XxxJohnDoExxxx / Wikimedia Commons

EMILY C. SKAFTUN: Today Dr. Raptor is here to talk about an American monster, the Rougarou. Take it away, won’t you?

VERONICA L. RAPTOR: First of all, Emily, you know how I feel about the word monster. That term is grossly overused, and carries serious negative connotations that not all cryptids deserve. Though in the case of the creature lurking in the marshes of Louisiana, I’ll allow it.

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Experience is the new luxury

Tired of cruises? Try an expedition aboard the MS Roald Amundsen

Photo courtesy of Hurtigruten
Hurtigruten’s newest vessel, MS Roald Amundsen, is an “expedition ship” built for the extreme environments of the Arctic and Antarctic seas.

If your image of a cruise ship is a floating monstrosity the size of a city block, full of casinos, colorful iced drinks with bendy straws, and overblown attractions like waterslides or ziplines, housing thousands of drunk travelers on their way someplace tropical—in other words, if you’re the kind of savvy traveler who scoffs at the idea of cruises—it’s time to take another look at Hurtigruten.

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Catching the Arctic Illness in Svalbard

Are people nuts to love the high north? I go to (almost) the end of the earth to find out

Arctic Illness Svalbard
Photo: Elizabeth Bourne
A mural in Barentsburg with a portion of the poem “Arctic Illness” by Russian poet Robert Rozhdestvensky.

Emily C. Skaftun
The Norwegian American

“Why are you going to Svalbard?” was the most frequent question I got when talking about my summer travel plans. In the way of many adventurers, I had no very compelling answer to the question. Because it’s there!

I have a friend in Longyearbyen now (Elizabeth Bourne, whose name you may recognize from this paper), who was willing to let me crash in her spare room and eager to show me around the place that she loves to a suspicious degree. Mutual friends tasked me with determining whether Elizabeth was entirely insane.

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Why is Seattle Parks and Rec hip-checking roller derby?

Emily C. Skaftun

Amid all the bad news for women and other uterus-having people, the smaller-scale tragedy of Seattle’s roller derby apocalypse might understandably have slipped your radar. Why complain about something as mundane as losing a warehouse lease or some lines on a community center floor when from Alabama to, well, Washington state, legislation is being proposed to send women, barefoot and pregnant, back to the kitchen?

But while fighting the big fights, the little fights remain important, too.

Roller derby empowers the (mostly) women and girls who play it; just ask any of the thousand-some participants in the Seattle area. Yeah, it’s big. You know someone involved in derby, and it might not be who you think: We are students, tradespeople, professionals and parents; we are school-age children and old enough to be grandparents; we are queerer than average, with a quarter of players identifying as something other than heterosexual; we are all genders, one of few sports welcoming trans and nonbinary players.

To keep reading, head over to Crosscut, where this piece was originally published.

It’s not jul without karamellpudding

Emily C. Skaftun
The Norwegian American

A caramel custard with three portions served into glass bowls
Photo: Daytona Strong
For me (Emily), karamellpudding is one element of Christmas that never disappoints.

Growing up, I didn’t always love Christmas. Shopping for a family of Norwegians was an annual challenge, Dad was a little bit Grinchy about the whole holiday, and sometimes our family gathering on Julaften felt so unchanging that it may as well have been scripted. Plus, I never liked lutefisk (I know, I’m sorry!), so I’d usually end up eating some ravioli or something for the main course. Bah humbug!

But there was always at least one thing I could count on: dessert. At the end of the evening, after opening all our presents from the family and julenissen, Tante Lise would brew some coffee, and we’d sit down around the most important part of the meal—karamellpudding (caramel custard).

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Think globally; gift locally

Editor’s Notes: A message from Editor-in-chief Emily C. Skaftun

Cross-stitch in a Nordic pattern that reads "hygge as fuck" (though part of the word "fuck" has been blurred
Photo: Emily C. Skaftun
One of my craft projects that may or may not end up a Christmas gift and a pretty good expression of how I feel heading into the holidays—cozy but also grumpy and sometimes foul-mouthed.

Sitting here in my office, a week into into November, it’s hard for me to believe that the holiday season is upon us again. It is, though. In my local Safeway, Halloween candy was shunted aside on Nov. 1, with candy canes taking its place. Starbucks holiday cups are out.

And so, the holiday onslaught begins, at least corporately.

I mean, here I am producing a large issue full of things you can buy, things you can wrap them with, ways to decorate the tree you’ll buy (or cut?) to put them under. They’re available online! They ship right to you!

And yet, there’s a part of me that wonders whether buying and shipping objects to give to everyone on our list is the ideal way to celebrate the holiday that is the very essence of hygge. It’s not a radical thought. Many have bemoaned the commercialization of the holiday. But what can we do?

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Fiction and empathy

fiction and empathy - Dexter Morgan
Photo: Christian Weber / Showtime
Dexter Morgan, sympathetic serial killer of books and television fame. Fiction shows us the inner workings of characters different from us, possibly increasing empathy.

A message from Editor-in-chief Emily C. Skaftun

To me, summer is for fiction. It’s a habit deeply ingrained by summer reading lists and reading of my own that, without school, I finally had time for. What are days at the beach or pool for, if not reading? Reading for pleasure, which for me means reading fiction. Continue reading “Fiction and empathy”

On shitholes* and immigration

Symbol of immigration: Statue of Liberty
Photo: Pixabay
According to our country’s most iconic monument, we are a refuge for “The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Taking in immigrants from “shithole” countries is central to America’s identity.

Emily C. Skaftun The Norwegian American As is I’m sure old news by the time you’re reading this, the world having moved on to another outrageous scandal in the two weeks between my writing this and this issue of The Norwegian American arriving in your mailbox, the President of the United States may or may not have asked, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” about countries in Africa, Haiti, and El Salvador. Instead, he suggested that we could use more people from countries like Norway.

Sigh. Continue reading “On shitholes* and immigration”