Wayne Dey, who grew up in a small town in Minnesota, learned firsthand about two pieces of evidence that seem to support the theory that Vikings sailed to North America during the 14^th Century.

The first piece of evidence is the Kensington Runestone, a 202-pound slab of greywacke covered in runes or carved words on its face and side.  The rune inscription purports to be a record left behind by Scandinavian explorers that has been internally dated to the year 1362.  Olof Ohman, a Swedish immigrant, said that he found the stone late in 1898 while he was clearing land recently acquired of the largely rural township of Solem, Minnesota.  He decided to name the runestone after Kensington, the nearest big settlement in Minnesota.  A long, drawn-out debate on the runestone’s authenticity is still going on.

 The second piece of evidence is the 76-foot-long exact replica of a Viking dragon ship built by Robert Asp, a junior high school guidance counselor, who just couldn’t let go of the idea that Norsemen set foot in North America long before any Europeans.  He planned to prove it by sailing such a ship from Duluth to Norway.  In order to realize his goal, he studied both Viking history and ship design before hand-building the “Hjemkomst” in a potato warehouse. The seaworthy replica was modeled after a 9th Century burial ship pulled from a funerary mound in Norway.

Asp managed to sail his completed dragon ship on Lake Superior, but he died of leukemia in 1980 before completing his bucket list dream. Two years later, family members and friends proved the ship could go the distance by sailing the “Hjemkomst” from Duluth to Bergen, Norway in 72 days.  The ship now resides at the Heritage-Hjemkomst Interpretive Center in Moorhead, Minnesota.

Port Hueneme Historical Society Museum Distinguished Speakers Series

Author and Journalist John Krist

will be addressing the topic:

“The Lewis and Clark Expedition:  Voyage of Rediscovery”

at the Port Hueneme Historical Society Museum

220 Market Street

on April 13, 2019 at 11:00AM

According to John Krist, the author of Voyage of Rediscovery (based on his experiences retracing the Lewis and Clark trail) “It is difficult to overstate the significance of the Lewis and Clark expedition in American history.”

When the explorers set out in 1803 to cross the largely unknown territory between the Mississippi River and the Pacific, the United States was largely oriented toward the Atlantic and Europe. When the expedition members returned in 1806, the nation had become continental in scale.  Detailed new information provided by the expedition drew Americans to travel westward.

Krist’s adventure began in the early summer of 2001, when he hit the road to retrace the steps of Lewis and Clark from St. Louis to the Oregon coast. Three months later, he had paddled, pedaled, hiked, and driven nearly 16,000 miles across 22 states.

The resulting yearlong series of stories, published monthly by the Ventura County Star, is an adventure tale filled with extremes in weather, encounters with wild animals, torment by mosquitoes, ticks and biting flies, and interviews with biologists, bartenders, river guides, history buffs, musicians, ranchers, and Native Americans.

Peggy Kelly’s fascination with the St. Francis Dam Disaster and the players in the tragedy began decades ago. She has written about it extensively — and, at times, controversially — and is currently working on a book about the incident, centering on the life of Motorcycle Officer and later Santa Paula Police Chief Thornton Edwards.

Peggy also wrote and produced the mini-documentary, “Thornton’s Wild Ride! The True, Untold and Unbelievable Story of the Hero of the St. Francis Dam Disaster” based on her upcoming book.
Not only was Kelly a journalist and writer based in Santa Paula but she is now the publisher and owner of the mighty Santa Paula Times. A native of California, Peggy did not enter the field of journalism full-time — a lifelong goal — until she was in her 30s.

Since then she has won more than a dozen Press Club Awards including the prestigious honor for Community Service, Investigative Reporting, Feature Writing, Essay & Opinion, Government Reporting and Arts-Theater Review.

Peggy has also written and performed standup comedy; a known wit and raconteur, she is a sought-after Master of Ceremonies for award programs, parades and special events.