Qualla: Runestone Museum https://qualla.com/runestone-museum en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:05 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/c/b/h/j/runestone-museum-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Runestone Museum https://qualla.com/runestone-museum Runestone Museum: Introduction https://qualla.com/runestone-museum/ Photo credit Myotus, CC BY-SA 4.0. A 28-foot fiberglass Viking named Big Ole stands guard in downtown Alexandria, Minnesota, his shield inscribed with a question that has haunted this lake-country town for over a century: "Minnesota Birthplace of America?" The question mark is the honest part. Inside the Runestone Museum a few blocks away sits the artifact that inspired Ole and the slogan -- a 202-pound slab of greywacke stone covered in runic inscriptions, allegedly unearthed from the roots of an aspen tree on a farm near Kensington in 1898. The Kensington Runestone claims that Norse explorers reached central Minnesota in 1362. Most scholars say someone carved those runes in the nineteenth century. Alexandria has built an identity around the debate itself, and the Runestone Museum is where that identity lives.

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Image: Myotus | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/b/h/j/runestone-museum-wp/cbhj-runestone-museum-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Runestone Museum: Tangled in the Roots https://qualla.com/runestone-museum/ Photo credit Myotus, CC BY-SA 4.0. On a November day in 1898, Swedish immigrant farmer Olof Ohman was clearing trees on his property near the village of Kensington, about fifteen miles southwest of Alexandria. According to his account, he found a flat stone slab entwined in the roots of an aspen tree, its face cov...

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Image: Myotus | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/b/h/j/runestone-museum-wp/cbhj-runestone-museum-tangled-in-the-roots.mp3 0:06 2 full Runestone Museum: A Hoax That Refuses to Die https://qualla.com/runestone-museum/ Photo credit Myotus, CC BY-SA 4.0. The first scientific examination in 1910 set the tone for what would become a drawn-out academic battle. Scandinavian linguists and historians examined the inscription and unanimously pronounced it a fraud of recent date, noting anachronistic rune forms and language that did not ...

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]]> Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/b/h/j/runestone-museum-wp/cbhj-runestone-museum-a-hoax-that-refuses-to-die.mp3 0:06 3 full Runestone Museum: More Than One Stone https://qualla.com/runestone-museum/ Photo credit Myotus, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Runestone Museum, established in 1958, wisely frames its centerpiece artifact within a much broader story. Beyond the famous stone, the museum's galleries explore the deep history of the people who actually did live in this landscape for millennia -- the Dakota and Ojibwe peo...

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]]> Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/b/h/j/runestone-museum-wp/cbhj-runestone-museum-more-than-one-stone.mp3 0:06 4 full Runestone Museum: Viking Country, Lake Country https://qualla.com/runestone-museum/ Photo credit Myotus, CC BY-SA 4.0. Alexandria sits in the heart of Minnesota's lake district, surrounded by more than a thousand lakes carved by glaciers during the last ice age. Douglas County alone contains over 200 of them, and the town has long marketed itself as a vacation destination for fishing, boating, an...

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]]> Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/b/h/j/runestone-museum-wp/cbhj-runestone-museum-viking-country-lake-country.mp3 0:06 5 full