A Visit to the Kensington Runestone

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on the Kensington Runestone. On Wednesday, I took a brief detour from some early winter travel to visit the sacred rock in Alexandria, Minnesota.

The museum, which sits next door to the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce, is worth the visit for all sorts of reasons. My biggest take away is the incredible earnestness of the entire operation. From the short film that introduces the stone to the exhibits associated with it, there is no concession to irony much less the ubiquitous “bothsidesism” that certain groups seem to value so strongly. There was no real engagement with arguments that suggest that the runestone was a forgery. A charitable interpretation of the museum might see the inclusion of a several displays of Native American artifacts as a way to acknowledge that the runestone presents a problematic image of Native American groups.

The museum presents the runestone as authentic. In fact, there is a huge painting to prove it!

What’s a bit disappointing to me is that scholars such as David Krueger do a nice job situating the runestone in the history of the region, in the experiences of Scandinavian immigrants to the area, the history of colonization and racial tensions between settlers and Native Americans, and in the broader history of American culture. These arguments do not hinge on the authenticity (or inauthenticity) of the runestone and make clear that even if this object is a late-19th century forgery, it nevertheless can help us understand the history of the region and the experience of settlers. 

I very much wanted to leave this museum with a feeling like they did the best they could with a challenging object and a challenging debate. In the end, it left feeling like this was more of a missed opportunity to engage their community and visitors in the complex history of their region.