MONROE - Thanks to his love of his heritage, Monroe resident Jamie Larson will appear Sunday on a Norwegian reality show about Americans of Norwegian descent.
Larson will appear as a contestant in the eighth season of "Alt for Norge" - meaning "All for Norway," the nation's national motto - a show that challenges Norwegian-Americans with tasks relating to Norwegian history, language and culture.
"My family always talked about Norway when I was a kid," Larson said. Larson's grandmother's family emigrated from Norway to Canada, and Larson grew up hearing stories about the family's ancestral home.
Larson, now 31 years old, keeps scores of pieces of Norwegian memorabilia at his Monroe residence and has several tattoos of Norwegian iconography.
Now, as a contestant on "Alt for Norge," Larson was able to visit Urnes, the Norwegian village where his family once lived and the home of the Urnes Stave Church, oldest medieval stave church in the world.
"My great-grandpa was baptized there," Larson said of the nearly 1,000-year-old church. "His parents were married there."
Larson found out about the show through video clips on YouTube and discussed it with fellow members of the group Sons of Norway, a society of Norwegian-Americans that Larson has been a member of for years. Eventually, a member of Sons of Norway told him about open auditions in Chicago, so Larson took a chance and auditioned for the show's seventh season.
"They told me they liked me but they needed a good mix of personalities," Larson said. "But they asked if I'd try again for the next season, and I said yes."
Larson reapplied in 2016 and won a role on the show, joining 11 other Norwegian-Americans from across the country. The cast members flew to Oslo on April 22.
Although Larson had never visited Norway before - "That's actually one of the requirements to be a contestant, that you've never been there before," Larson said - he had a conversational knowledge of Norwegian, which helped him with the show's challenges.
"For one of them, people in Norway don't care about swearing," Larson said. "So we had to go around and ask strangers to teach us swear words in Norwegian."
However, a physical aspect of the challenges proved to be Larson's undoing. For a challenge at Urnes, contestants needed to phonetically transcribe a Norwegian sentence - made more challenging by the varied regional dialects of spoken Norwegian - and walk down a fjord to one of the show's hosts to recite the sentence. Anyone who failed to properly recite the sentence had to climb back up the fjord to try again.
"Whoever finished last got kicked off the show," Larson said. "And since I have bad knees, climbing up and down all the time was tough."
Despite his early disqualification, Larson said he enjoyed his time in Norway. After his departure from the show, the producers allowed him to explore Oslo for a day, all expenses paid, before returning to America.
"I pictured these beautiful landscapes there and that's exactly how it is," Larson said. "I'd love to go back when I can afford it."
The season premiere of "Alt for Norge" will air Sunday on TVNorge. Americans can view episodes of the show online using the video platform dplay.no.
Larson will appear as a contestant in the eighth season of "Alt for Norge" - meaning "All for Norway," the nation's national motto - a show that challenges Norwegian-Americans with tasks relating to Norwegian history, language and culture.
"My family always talked about Norway when I was a kid," Larson said. Larson's grandmother's family emigrated from Norway to Canada, and Larson grew up hearing stories about the family's ancestral home.
Larson, now 31 years old, keeps scores of pieces of Norwegian memorabilia at his Monroe residence and has several tattoos of Norwegian iconography.
Now, as a contestant on "Alt for Norge," Larson was able to visit Urnes, the Norwegian village where his family once lived and the home of the Urnes Stave Church, oldest medieval stave church in the world.
"My great-grandpa was baptized there," Larson said of the nearly 1,000-year-old church. "His parents were married there."
Larson found out about the show through video clips on YouTube and discussed it with fellow members of the group Sons of Norway, a society of Norwegian-Americans that Larson has been a member of for years. Eventually, a member of Sons of Norway told him about open auditions in Chicago, so Larson took a chance and auditioned for the show's seventh season.
"They told me they liked me but they needed a good mix of personalities," Larson said. "But they asked if I'd try again for the next season, and I said yes."
Larson reapplied in 2016 and won a role on the show, joining 11 other Norwegian-Americans from across the country. The cast members flew to Oslo on April 22.
Although Larson had never visited Norway before - "That's actually one of the requirements to be a contestant, that you've never been there before," Larson said - he had a conversational knowledge of Norwegian, which helped him with the show's challenges.
"For one of them, people in Norway don't care about swearing," Larson said. "So we had to go around and ask strangers to teach us swear words in Norwegian."
However, a physical aspect of the challenges proved to be Larson's undoing. For a challenge at Urnes, contestants needed to phonetically transcribe a Norwegian sentence - made more challenging by the varied regional dialects of spoken Norwegian - and walk down a fjord to one of the show's hosts to recite the sentence. Anyone who failed to properly recite the sentence had to climb back up the fjord to try again.
"Whoever finished last got kicked off the show," Larson said. "And since I have bad knees, climbing up and down all the time was tough."
Despite his early disqualification, Larson said he enjoyed his time in Norway. After his departure from the show, the producers allowed him to explore Oslo for a day, all expenses paid, before returning to America.
"I pictured these beautiful landscapes there and that's exactly how it is," Larson said. "I'd love to go back when I can afford it."
The season premiere of "Alt for Norge" will air Sunday on TVNorge. Americans can view episodes of the show online using the video platform dplay.no.