Bucket List #94 | Nordic Heritage Museum

Our Seattle bucket list is a list of adventures we're hoping to have while Landon studies at the University of Washington for the next several years. To view all of our bucket list posts, click here.

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Way back before Thanksgiving (which seems so long ago now!), we took a little trip to the Nordic Heritage Museum.  I have been excited to go here, since my ancestors came to America from Norway on a ship in the 1830s. We love museums, and the chance to learn about other cultures is one of the benefits of living in a large city.

We decided to go during Yule Fest, a Christmas celebration they hold each year. The event promised food, handmade crafts, and children's activities. Not to mention it's cheaper to visit the museum on that day.

The food was good - but you had to pay extra for it, and it was only desserts. Still, we thoroughly enjoyed the Scandinavian pastries and cookies. Especially that chocolate chip meringue!

There were a lot of craft vendors - way too many. And sadly, I think I could count on one hand the number of them that had anything to do with Nordic Heritage. We saw everything from painted wood crafts and crocheted hats to Indian scarves and Peruvian finger puppets (?).

But the biggest letdown of the day was that some of the museum displays were covered up or inaccessible. There was some interesting information there, but really nothing original. No genuine artifacts or personal stories...just generic facts about Norway, Ellis Island, and how the Ballard neighborhood was founded, with some dioramas thrown in.

Although it was a fun, inexpensive way to spend our Saturday, we have to give the Nordic Heritage Museum:

I wouldn't really call this a tourist destination, or take my family here for a visit. We had fun because we made it fun, but as museums go, it was lackluster at best.