When Mary Hegge booked a flight for Norway in 1993, she wasn't looking for a husband. But that is what she found.
The St. Paul native, in fact, was headed for her ancestral land to participate in a folk-dance camp in the Valdres area, about 125 miles north of Oslo.
There she encountered Olav Hegge, a Valdres hay farmer with a national reputation as a hardanger fiddler and a springar dancer.
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"He's Norwegian and I'm American, and he votes and pays taxes in Norway and I do the same here. Maybe we'll have to decide on one place or the other eventually, but for now it works." -- Mary Hegge
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Since then, the couple has built a successful -- albeit unconventional -- marriage, based on a common language: a shared passion for the traditional music and dance of Norway and other Scandinavian countries.
The couple entertained a Brainerd audience Friday with performances on the hardanger fiddle, as well as the langeleik, a Norwegian string instrument that dates back to the early 1500s.
"He was one of those who came to fiddle and dance (at the camp) and we met," Mary Hegge said in an interview this week. "It was a matter of timing because we were both free (to marry).
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A trio of Scandinavian fiddlers, featuring master hardanger fiddler Olav Hegge (right) of the Valdres area of Norway, provided the accompaniment for The Norwegian Folk Dance Club during its performance Friday in Brainerd. (Photos by Terry Mikelson)
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"He said if I wanted to come to see his part of Norway, I could come back and he would be busy with the hay," she said, "and here we are."
Married in 1995, the couple divides their time between Norway and the United States, spending about four months apart each year.
"He's Norwegian and I'm American, and he votes and pays taxes in Norway and I do the same here," she said. "Maybe we'll have to decide on one place or the other eventually, but for now it works."
Hegge said she spends about five months each year in Norway, and "I'm always there during the farming season, which is kind of fun for a city girl."
A native of St. Paul with Scandinavian ancestry, Hegge got interested in her cultural heritage about 15 years ago, when her first marriage ended, she said.
She started dancing with a Scandinavian group in North Carolina, where she lived at the time, and picked up the traditional Swedish fiddle when she returned to St. Paul about a decade ago.
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Members of Det Norske Folkedanslaget (The Norwegian Folk Dance Club) of the Twin Cities entertained a Brainerd audience with traditional Scandinavian dances during a weekend performance at Lowell Elementary School. The dancers were part of a cultural arts program arranged by the Skal Klubb, a Scandinavian fiddling group from the lakes area.
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Since then, she has emerged as an acknowledged dance master and fiddle player, offering regular lessons and performances at the American Swedish Institute, the Tapestry Folkdance Center and other Twin Cities cultural centers.
"I wasn't exposed to all this cultural stuff when I was young," Hegge said, "and didn't even know it existed until about 15 years ago. But there is value in not leaving the past behind."
Over the years, she has journeyed several times to the Scandinavian countries for lessons and special camps, including the Valdres gathering where she met her husband-to-be.
Olav Hegge was raised on the small farm where he still resides, growing up among a family of musicians and dancers, Hegge said.
Trained as an engineer, Olav Hegge worked the farm until last year, when he leased it to a cousin and turned his full-time attention to his excavating and road building company.
"He had music around him all the time," Hegge said. "He and his family would sit at home in the evenings, at the end of the work day, and play their instruments and sing and dance."
Over the years, Olav Hegge has mastered the hardanger fiddle, considered Norway's national instrument, and the folk dances associated with his native soil.
Over the past two years, Olav's countrymen and women have recognized the couple as "elite dancers" of the Valdres-springar.
In fact, Mary Hegge may be "the only American who dances in Norwegian traditional dance competitions," where the couple has gained enough points to reach the elite class, she said.
In recent years, Mary Hegge has taken up the langeleik, because "I wanted to offer another piece of that culture in our program."
