11th Annual Winternights Festival
2022 - 11th Winternights Festival
Update/News -
THANK YOU attendees and donors!
While the sun was not present most of the day – those of you that were here didn’t see rain either a big plus. We want to thank ‘A Touch of Glass and’ for returning as a vendor .. again great wares as well as great people.. Thank you to our volunteers..
To those of you that came especially to see ‘Sons of Odin’ presentations, wares, and members we understand any disappointment you may have and apologize for not letting you know ahead they would not be able to be here as planned.. We expect that, like us, you also understand that medical emergencies do not follow our calendars or plans.. Any loss to the event is overshadowed by our happiness that Norns allowed for full recovery of Rhiannon – the groups/chapters national president and spiritual leader/advisor.
Need a day of rest before cleaning up and evaluating what was raised for the ‘Northern NJ Veterans Cemetery’ from the festival..
Our furnace did not yield an iron bloom but we did learn from our first attempt.. it started developing an ever widening crack on two sides so while we kept it going we did not chance having the roaring fire it needed to smelt iron ore.. It did get to over 1000 F but not white hot for long enough.. We may have some iron but not a bloom.
A big hit this year was the hatchet throwing area for kids (of all ages lol) with the velcro targets getting a real work out ..
Thank you to all ..
Update/News -
A working iron forge and furnace this year along with cooking fire pit
We have some other surprises to make this an all age fun educational event .. we'll share them in coming weeks.
Different grades (ages / safety) of axe throwing for the festival and for future outdoor/indoor activities.. None of them are real axes but some are for bigger kids/adults and some are for 5ish to 10ish?
Sunday Oct 23th, 2022
THANK YOU! 2022- attendees/vendors/organizations
A total of $314 will be given to NNJVC
Total donations from attendees came to $69
As in the past the Vernon Nordic House donated sales from food adding another $205 to that plus $40 from vendor fees
While the attendance was far less than anticipated, no doubt due to less than hospitable weather, the event itself was still a good one. Unfortunately but understandably Sons of Odin and Olaf (Slavic Invasion) were not present due to last minute health concerns. We wish them speedy and full recoveries.
We’ll be posting more here, on FB, and on the Lars & Sven Foundation site in the coming weeks including photos and videos. The final donation amount will be given to the Northern NJ Veterans cemetery on Veterans Day next month..
One thing we did expand (add) this year is our Viking Village area. The plan is to show what foods and how they might have been (were) prepared.. It of course would vary from village to village let alone from country to country (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, etc). We are limited to some extent by todays regulations but with a bit of creativity we hope to combine todays technologies with Viking methods..
Winternights Festival is now a 501c
It took a while but this event is now part of the “Lars & Sven Foundation” events and activities.
We finally received our exemption from IRS and are now a bona fide – 501c3
Thank you to everyone that attended our last event. We were busy so not able to really notice but others said it seemed like a good turn out. Thanks to those that donated extra for the Veterans. Thank you to all the great vendors, educators, participants, performers, et ALL. We heard a lot of nice feed back during the event about the quality of vendors we had and the craftsmanship of them. Thanks to the hard working volunteers some which prefer not to have their name on FB etc. Safe journey to all.
Hail Facebook – Hail Vetrnaetr on it!
Build a Viking Longship Project
Each year we work on adding something new to the grounds that honors our Viking ancestors in a way that is informative, educational, and respectful. We usually unveil it at our Winternights Festival in October. This year we are working on several projects that we believe Odin and the Norns will approve of. The resumption and continuation of our ‘build a viking longship’ is still on hold unfortunately. We have several restoration projects going on as well.
* Would like to thank Jan Bill, professor & curator of the Viking Ship Collection, at Oslo Universitet for responding immediately with helpful info along with wishing us well on the reconstruct. During our kickoff meeting and in the video we showed at it we acknowledged Thomas Finderup for his expertise on riving and viking ship construction. We recently contacted him for further information on techniques. He responded immediately including providing us a photo to help. We want to thank him for doing that and to subsequently acknowledge him for his guidance and continued help. Thank you!!!