Book of the Month: An Untamed Land

An Untamed Land by Lauraine Snelling


This is the first book about the Bjorklund family who emmigrated from Norway to the Dakotas in the late 1800's.  It is the first in the series known as Red River of the North, which is continued in several additional series that follow the Bjorklund family and the town they helped found for a few generations.

It begins with Roald and Ingeborg Bjorklund traveling to America with his brother Carl and wife Kaaren.  It took me a while to get used to the Norwegian names and expressions, and forget about pronouncing them!  It gives quite a good description of the details of what immigrants experienced--the payment for passage, the difficulties of boat travel, the language barrier, the hard work and sacrifices to make a life, the ready catastrophes of weather and circumstance.  It also shows the journey to serve God in daily life, rewards and failures.  No matter the era, those concepts are the same for everyone.

In this first book, the two families make the long journey across the ocean and the continent and find land to begin making a home.  Through setbacks, calamities, and victories the Bjorklunds continue on.