Matt Wastradowski

Matt Wastradowski

Matt Wastradowski is an Oregon-based travel writer who loves writing about the great outdoors, craft beer, and regional history.

The Scandinavian Community in Portland

Experience Scandinavian culture in Portland through local restaurants, museums, wellness-minded spas, saunas and annual events.

8 min read
Matt Wastradowski

Matt Wastradowski

Matt Wastradowski is an Oregon-based travel writer who loves writing about the great outdoors, craft beer, and regional history.

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Portland is home to a thriving Scandinavian community, one that’s been a part of the city’s fabric since its earliest years. Today, Nordic and Scandinavian cultures are celebrated with acclaimed restaurants, annual festivals and a thriving cultural hub. Take it all in on your next visit with this guide to Portland’s Scandinavian communities and cultures.

Nordic-Inspired Food, Markets and More

Taste traditional recipes, try creative takes on classic dishes and savor fresh, seasonal ingredients from local growers at Nordic-inspired restaurants around Portland.

With three area locations, Broder is the premier purveyor of Scandinavian fare in the Portland area. The chain’s cafés evoke the cozy concept of hygge in its purest form with warmly lit interiors and comfort-food specialties like Æbleskiver (Danish pancake balls), lefse (Norwegian potato crepes), raggmunk (Swedish potato pancakes served with lingonberry jam) and wild-caught salmon cakes. Every winter, Broder prepares limited batches of semlor (sweet buns filled with almond paste) around Fettisdagen (Fat Tuesday).

In the Woodstock neighborhood, Viking Soul Food is a long-running food-cart-turned-restaurant where you can fill up on house-cured and -smoked salmon, pølse, Swedish sausage with Jarlsberg cheese and lingonberries, and other Scandi-soul fusion fare. Grab Icelandic chocolate, jars of lingonberries and other pantry items for back home.

Just west of Portland, Carina’s Bakery specializes in wholly vegan, mostly gluten-free takes on Scandinavian baked goods in downtown Beaverton. Highlights include the decadent kladdkaka, a Swedish cake with a brownie-like texture, and a few varieties of smörgås, a Swedish open-faced sandwich.

Looking for gifts, home goods and imported treats? In addition to apparel from independent designers, the boutique Seven Sisters sells candies and snacks from around the world — including Swedish brands like BonBon and Sockerbit. You’ll also find Scandinavian goodies among the stylish home goods, jewelry and kitchenwares at Mantel in the Kenton neighborhood. Woonwinkel embraces a Scandinavian design aesthetic with a bright, airy shop selling kitchen items, gifts and trinkets in downtown.

When you’re looking to rest up, book a bunk or private room at the socially minded KEX Hotel, an airy space in the Central Eastside neighborhood designed by Icelandic artist Hálfdan Pedersen. Artwork is crafted from reclaimed materials, a cedar sauna encourages relaxation, and a rooftop bar is perfect for summertime socializing.

Scandinavian Festivals and Events

A number of annual events share Scandinavian culture around Portland — many of which are free or low-cost and family-friendly.

  • Willamette Sauna Festivaali: The mid-winter Willamette Sauna Festivaali brings together more than a dozen mobile sauna cabins, local craft brews and live music every February.
  • Fastelavn: Just before the Lenten season, the Fastelavn Nordic carnival brings all manner of family fun to the Nordic Northwest campus. Dress up in colorful costumes, help decorate vibrant fastelavnsris (birch twigs that celebrate the arrival of spring), play games and sample snacks at the lively celebration.
  • Norway’s Constitution Day: Every May 17, the Portland chapter of the Sons of Norway marks Syttende Mai with a parade, vendors and Norwegian foods.
  • Portland Midsommar Festival: The League of Swedish Societies, made up of several community organizations, puts on the Portland Midsommar Festival, a solstice celebration at Oaks Amusement Park that invites visitors to make flower crowns, listen to live entertainment and eat traditional foods.
  • Oregon Midsummer Festival: The Oregon Midsummer Festival celebrates the summer solstice in June with a Midsummer pole, arts and crafts, Nordic foods and more.
  • ScanFair: Every December, stroll through a Nordic-style Christmas market at ScanFair, which has showcased traditional foods such as riisipuuro (rice porridge), live music, dancing, local vendors and other festivities for more than 40 years. 
  • Scandinavian Christmas Goat Market: Every holiday season, join the New Sweden Cultural Heritage Society for a holiday celebration — complete with music, vendors, dancing, food and a Lego display — at the Scandinavian Christmas Goat Market.

Scandinavian Arts and Culture

Several long-running groups, organizations and museums celebrate Scandinavian and Nordic cultures around Portland.

Nordic Museums and Performing Arts

One of the largest organizations is Nordic Northwest, a nonprofit cultural hub that hosts film screenings, lectures, dances, festivals and other public programming in Southwest Portland. On your visit, peruse historic and fine-art exhibits, pick up trinkets at a gift shop with imported goods and save room for Broder Söder, a café dishing Nordic fare. Nordic Northwest’s most famous resident is the Ole Bolle Troll, a towering piece built from recycled materials by Danish artist Thomas Dambo for the Northwest Trolls: Way of the Bird King public art project. Multiple TriMet bus lines access the community center.

The Portland Nordic Chorus, meanwhile, celebrates Nordic cultures with live performances in Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish. Catch the chorus as headliners or at events and festivals in the Portland region.

Nordic and Scandinavian Heritage and Cultural Organizations

Find more organizations celebrating Nordic and Scandinavian culture in Portland.

  • Portland Daughters of Norway: Celebrate Norwegian heritage with music and dance events, author talks, and other culturally minded programs.
  • Sons of Norway: The Portland chapter of the organization, formed in 1910, holds public events at the Grieg Lodge and Norse Hall in the Central Eastside — home to a ballroom, bar and Norwegian library. Enjoy a Viking Pancake Breakfast the second Sunday of each month — other than July and August — which includes strawberry compote and lingonberry jam; during each breakfast, an on-site gift shop sells vintage Norwegian wares.
  • New Sweden Cultural Heritage Society: Embrace Swedish customs and traditions in Portland with a springtime Valborg celebration, holiday markets and other events throughout the year.
  • Swedish Society Linnea: This organization was founded in 1888 and is today the oldest Swedish society in the Pacific Northwest.
  • Finlandia Foundation Columbia-Pacific Chapter: Sit down for dinners and join a variety of events routinely hosted by this local group.
  • Northwest Danish Association: Take part in conversation groups, holiday festivities and other Danish-inspired events.
  • Danish Sisterhood of America: The Portland chapter, Mt. Hood Lodge #81, has served the local community since 1904.

Friluftsliv and Wellness in Portland

The area’s first Scandinavian immigrants connected deeply with Portland’s landscapes and climate, no matter the season, and that love of the region’s parks, forests and rivers remains as strong as ever today. This is the embodiment of “friluftsliv”, the Scandinavian concept of “outdoor living”.

Revel in Portland’s natural beauty with a hike on a stretch of the Wildwood Trail, which runs through the massive Forest Park — and whose myriad trailheads can be accessed from multiple TriMet bus lines. (One of Forest Park’s trails is named for Norse explorer Leif Erikson.) If you’d rather hop in the saddle, ride to your heart’s content on the Springwater Corridor, a paved cycling and walking path that passes through forests and wetlands — and is mostly protected from public roads.

Come winter, take your pick of opportunities for snowy fun on Mount Hood. Get started with Mt. Hood Outfitters, which leads guided snowshoe tours and offers rentals for downhill and cross-country skiers alike. If you’re ready to head out on your own, consider a day in the woods at the nonprofit Teacup Nordic Snow Park or a scenic snowshoe trek around Trillium Lake. For downhill fun, choose among five ski areas, including the iconic Timberline Lodge and the challenging Mt. Hood Meadows, on the slopes of Oregon’s tallest peak.

After your outdoor adventures, rest and recharge with wellness-minded offerings at one of Portland’s urban spas or soaking pools. McMenamins — a regional chain of whimsical restaurants, hotels and music venues — hosts soaking pools at its Crystal Hotel, Kennedy School and Edgefield properties. Elsewhere in town, pair a massage with pool time and a trip to the sauna at Knot Springs in Portland’s Central Eastside. Löyly Sauna, meanwhile, delivers a two-hour Finnish sauna experience with optional face mask, foot soak and vihta whisking upgrades. In the Alberta Arts District, the ultra-modern Cascada Thermal Springs + Hotel features pools of varying temperatures, plush daybeds for relaxation, and a garden-like back patio outfitted with a sauna, soaking pool and firepit.

Portland’s Scandinavian History

In its earliest years of statehood, Oregon’s Scandinavian population could be measured in the dozens. That changed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when immigrants from Norway, Sweden and Denmark arrived in Portland, united in their affection for the state’s cool climate and natural beauty. The first laborers worked as anglers on the coast and as loggers and farmers around Portland; eventually, Nordic engineer Karl P. Billner designed several bridges along the Historic Columbia River Highway in the Columbia River Gorge — the first concrete bridges in Oregon. Philanthropist Simon Benson, for whom downtown’s Benson Bubbler water fountains were named, was born in Norway.

Even so, growing Scandinavian communities found ways to have fun away from work. In the early 1900s, Nordic immigrants forever changed the face of outdoor recreation in Oregon when they introduced downhill skiing, cross-country skiing and other forms of winter recreation to Mount Hood just outside Portland. In fact, Norwegian immigrant Hjalmar Hvam was part of the first group to ski down the Mt. Hood summit in 1931. Today, the snow-covered peak is one of the region’s most popular outdoor playgrounds every winter.