The North Shore Commercial Fishing Museum is a museum in
Tofte, Minnesota
Tofte is an unincorporated area, unincorporated community in Tofte Township, Cook County, Minnesota, Tofte Township, Cook County, Minnesota, Cook County, Minnesota, United States.
Location
Tofte is on the North Shore (Lake Superior), North Shore ...
, dedicated to the history of the
Scandinavian immigrants and communities of the
North Shore region of
Lake Superior
Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...
, and especially their importance to the national commercial fishing industry of the 1880s to 1940s. It is Minnesota's first museum dedicated to
commercial fishing
Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for commercial profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice it as an industry must often ...
.
The Norwegian American
The ''Norwegian American'' (NA) is a newspaper that publishes material contributed by writers from Norway and the Norwegian American community. The ''Norwegian American'' is distributed on a biweekly basis by mail to thousands of subscribers in th ...
newspaper called the museum an important chronicle of Scandinavian immigrant history, saying the museum "offers the region’s most complete explanation of North Shore commercial fishing history."
Nina Gadomski, author of the 2005 book ''Great Midwest Country Escapes'', called it "a great little museum".
Mike Whye of the
Des Moines Register
''The Des Moines Register'' is the daily morning newspaper of Des Moines, Iowa.
History Early period
The first newspaper in Des Moines was the ''Iowa Star''. In July 1849, Barlow Granger began the paper in an abandoned log cabin by the junction ...
said that the museum is "small, but it gives a fine account of the industry that drove this part of the state for decades."
History
![North Shore Commercial Fishing Museum interior 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/North_Shore_Commercial_Fishing_Museum_interior_1.jpg)
The museum opened in September 1996.
[ The museum was founded by a group of Tofte residents including Brian Tofte, grandson of the town founders and a collector of oral histories of retired Lake Superior fishermen.][ It is operated and governed by the Tofte Historical Society.]
Focus
The museum traces the development of the commercial fishing industry, with a focus on Lake Superior, fishing families, and fishing techniques of the heyday of the industry from the 1880s to 1950s, when fish from Lake Superior were an important food source for the entire United States.[ At that time, the workers were usually lone fishermen or small groups, and almost exclusively made up of Norwegian immigrants. Before overfishing and the introduction of exotic species crashed native fish populations in Lake Superior, the sizable populations of whitefish, ]herring
Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae.
Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...
, and trout
Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salmoni ...
supported an enormous business, with a fishing establishment located, on average, every half-mile of the Superior shoreline. During this time, fishing was the main source of livelihood for North Shore residents, followed by logging and farming.[
]
Exhibits
The museum's collections include artifacts such as herring shovels and gill nets, pictures, and oral histories collected from fishermen and members of their families.
The building itself is a reconstructed replica of the twin fish house shared by twin brothers Andrew and John Tofte and Hans Engelsen, who founded the town in 1893.
Exhibits of particular note include:
*The ''Viking'', a fishing boat owned by local fisherman Walter Sve, as well as a special structure to protect it from the elements called a ''grindbygg'', a type of Norwegian boat shelter used since Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
times, constructed by artisans from the North House Folk School in nearby Grand Marais, Minnesota.
*An exhibit on the steamship ''America'', an important link between Duluth and other communities on the North Shore, which sank near Isle Royale in 1928. The museum's exhibit features a scale model of the America and its bell, which was donated to the museum in 2001.
*An exhibit detailing the heroic but ultimately failed attempt by Helmer Aakvik to rescue a fellow fisherman lost in a late-November winter storm. Aakvik became trapped on the icy lake himself, and survived the night in 25-foot waves while chopping ice off his boat and body with an axe and battling the disintegration of his boat.
Journal
The historical society has published the ''North Shore Commercial Fishing Museum Journal'' quarterly since 1993. The publication features articles on the fishing families, lore, and history of the North Shore.
References
External links
North Shore Commercial Fishing Museum official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:North Shore Commercial Fishing Museum
Museums in Cook County, Minnesota
Tourist attractions in Cook County, Minnesota
History museums in Minnesota
Fishing museums
1996 establishments in Minnesota
Maritime museums in Minnesota
Lake Superior