Rebild

Facts

Expat reunion

By Morten Pedersen, Cand.mag., phd. Museumsinspektør på Nordjyllands Historiske Museum (16 stories)

Between 1868 and 1903 a total of 160,000 Danes emigrated to the US. Most fled from poverty-stricken rural areas. Himmerland lost more than one in every ten of its inhabitants. But home-sickness was rife. In 1909, 1,200 Danish-born Americans visited the Danish industry, craft and culture exhibition in Aarhus. In 1912, the Danish American National Park was established at Rebild Bakker as the venue for annual expatriate reunions on American Independence Day. The Rebild reunion is still held every 4 July. Every year the forest that threatens to encroach onto the hills is cleared so the families of the Danes who left for foreign shores can return and find the heather-covered scenery of yesteryear.

Public place

Selected entry

Revolutionary Redskins in Rebild

Story written by Morten Pedersen

Time / Periode 1912

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As generations have passed, the Rebild reunion has changed nature. One event in particular caused many people to associate Rebild Bakker directly with anti-American sentiments. In 1976, the partygoers were stopped in their tracks by the sight of members of the leftist theatre troupe Solvognen dressed as Greenlanders and Native Americans thundering whooping over the steep hills on horseback. It was a well rehearsed initiative. When the police intervened, the Redskins refused to go quietly and the violent struggles with the superior force projected exactly the image they wanted of western capitalists oppressing Native Americans and other indigenous peoples. The image had quite an impact because Solvognen's battle was seen not only by the 30,000 Rebild visitors but also by millions of American TV viewers.