A 30-foot-tall example of a brightly colored Swedish Dala horse at the Scandinavian Heritage Park in Minot (pronounced MINE-ott), the principal city in north-central North Dakota. The park showcases structures and objects reminiscemt each of the Scandinavian nations of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, as well as neighboring Finland and the Atlantic Ocean nation of Iceland. (Scandinavian immigrants — farmers especially — are central to the settlement of the American northern plains. A Dalecarlian horse or Dala horse is a carved, painted wooden statue of a horse that originated in the Swedish province of Dalarna. Photo by Carol Highsmith 2021.