In the 20th episode of 200 Norwegians, we tell the story of Magnus “Wolf” Larsen, a Norwegian-American boxer whose career rose quickly—and unraveled just as fast.

Born in southern Norway in 1901, Larsen grew up in a family of Travelers and experienced violence and instability from an early age. After coming to the United States, he emerged as a powerful amateur boxer, winning both the New York State and national amateur championships in 1921.

Turning professional, Larsen faced some of the leading fighters of his time, including Gene Tunney. But longer bouts, heavy drinking, and poor decisions undermined his career. Within a few years, he was banned from boxing in New York and drifted through smaller venues and countries, eventually ending up on the margins of the Norwegian immigrant community.

This episode examines Larsen’s brief rise and long decline, and what his life reveals about opportunity, risk, and failure in early twentieth-century immigrant America.

Long before skiing was mainstream in the United States, Stein Eriksen helped transform it from a niche activity into a lifestyle. This episode traces how a boy who grew up near the forests of Oslo, raised by ski-obsessed parents and shaped by war, discipline, and relentless training, went on to redefine what alpine skiing could be. We follow his path from dark wartime slopes in Norway to the bright mountains of Aspen, from Olympic glory to celebrity friendships, commercials, and ski resorts built around his name. Along the way, we explore how style, timing, and personality mattered as much as medals.

With the help of folklorist Thor Gotaas, this episode moves fast—packed with facts, anecdotes, and sharp turns—and shows how Stein Eriksen became skiing’s first true superstar.

In the 18th episode of 200 Norwegians, we tell the story of Thorstein Veblen, a Norwegian-American thinker who spent his life trying to understand why wealthy societies so often lose their way.

Veblen died in 1929, alone in a small cabin in California. No obituary appeared. His name had largely vanished from public conversation. Then the stock market crashed—and suddenly America remembered him.

Born to Norwegian immigrant parents on the Midwestern frontier, Veblen grew up in a tight-knit Norwegian community, culturally distant from the America that was rapidly industrializing around him. That distance gave him a peculiar vantage point. He watched the rise of great fortunes, railroads, monopolies, and financiers—and noticed something unsettling. Wealth, he argued, was increasingly detached from productive work and devoted instead to display.

In The Theory of the Leisure Class, Veblen coined the term “conspicuous consumption,” not as a slogan, but as a diagnosis of a society that had begun to mistake waste for success.

This episode explores Veblen’s unlikely life—from Norwegian farm communities to elite universities—and why his ideas keep resurfacing during moments of economic crisis. It is a story about status, power, and a question that remains unresolved: what kind of prosperity actually serves society?

In the 17th episode of 200 Norwegians, you learn about Knut Hovden.

He was born on a storm-beaten island outside Bergen in 1880, a frail boy who couldn’t join the fishermen at sea. Instead, he watched, listened, and learned. While others hauled nets, he studied the science behind them. That curiosity carried him from a small coastal village to Norway’s leading fish-preservation school — and eventually far beyond Norway itself.

After the great fire of Ålesund in 1904, Hovden crossed the Atlantic and arrived in Monterey, California. There, he reshaped an entire industry. He invented machines, redesigned fishing methods, and turned a sleepy waterfront into the sardine capital of the world. His work fed soldiers in two world wars and helped build the booming canning empire that defined Cannery Row.

But his success came with consequences: pollution, overfishing, political battles, and a personal life marked by turmoil.

The sixteenth episode of 200 Norwegians tells the story of Campbell Norsgaard, the photographer who risked his life to document Norway under Nazi occupation—and later captured its rebirth. Imprisoned by the Gestapo for taking forbidden photos, Norsgaard escaped and went on to become the official photographer for the Royal Norwegian Air Force at Little Norway in Canada. His lens followed the war across continents—from pilots training in exile to the King’s return after liberation—and later turned toward the quiet wonders of nature in films for the National Geographic Society.

In this episode, I speak with Heather Turner, Norsgaard’s granddaughter, who shares unseen images from the family archive and helps piece together the undocumented story of the documentarian.

In this episode of 200 Norwegians, we explore how one man’s brushstrokes brought a fading folk art back to life. With insights from Patti Goke, a Vesterheim Gold Medalist, and Håkon Lysne, president of the Lærdal Historical Society, we trace the journey of the Father of American Rosemaling—from the fjords of Norway to the heart of the Midwest.

In the 14th episode of 200 Norwegian, we tell the story of Leif Erikson—the first European to reach North America—and how his place in U.S. history was revived a thousand years later.

We trace Helge Ingstad’s 1960 search to L’Anse aux Meadows, where turf-house ruins and later carbon dating confirmed a Viking-age settlement, bringing the sagas of Vinland out of myth and into evidence. Along the way, we ask why Columbus became a household name while Leif lingered in the footnotes, and what the sagas (and their contradictions) really say about Helluland, Markland, and Vinland.

Our guest is Norwegian journalist and author Knut Lindh—who met Ingstad—and helps unpack how discovery, memory, and identity shape the Leif Erikson story.

The thirteenth episode of 200 Norwegians tells the story of Ole Evinrude, the man who invented the first successful outboard motor.

Born in Norway and raised in Wisconsin, Evinrude struggled through failures and setbacks before his persistence led to an invention that changed boating forever. From a melting ice cream cone on a hot summer day to a machine that revolutionized life on America’s lakes and rivers, his journey is one of determination and ingenuity.

In this episode, I speak with Bob Jacobson, author of Ole Evinrude and His Outboard Motor.