Barb Solberg from Minot, ND, began her January 14 presentation at LRSC speaking to one of her former students, Jason Mitchell. Solberg, at the time, taught creative writing at Minot State University, Mitchell, one of her students, is well-known throughout the Lake Region for his work as a hunting and fishing guide who has his own Facebook page and television show about being a year-round guide on Devils Lake.
Mitchell took Solberg’s class to learn more about creative writing. Her advice to her student was to write about the things he knew and cared about, like hunting and fishing. She reminded him of that now years later as he joined many local folks gathered in the Chautauqua Gallery of the Lake Region State College to celebrate Solberg’s latest achievement.
Her novel, based on her own family story, is titled “What We Leave Behind” and it was selected as one of the 2025 Great Reads from Great Places for the National Book Festival by the Library of Congress USA.
She came to the Lake Region to share her experience receiving this award and the experience of being recognized for her family’s story. “It was a bigger deal than I ever knew,” Solberg told the audience. As a condition of the award, she promised to speak at 12 different places in the country who asked her to speak about her experience. Initially 12 different places asked. But Solberg told the audience that the Devils Lake presentation was the 71st she had done.
Solberg had sold out of all the copies of her book before coming to the Lake Region, but she did mention it can be obtained on line or through independent booksellers around the country.
The title, “What We Leave Behind” refers to the people, relationships that are left behind when a family member immigrated to “the new country” – the United States.
Traditionally in Norway, for example, the eldest son inherits all the land and it is up to the other siblings to find their own way in the world. One of the many reasons why so many Norwegians immigrated to the US. Solberg’s book is one family’s story about that immigration and “What We Leave Behind.”
There was success in the new world for those who immigrated and received their 160 homestead acres in the Van Hook, ND region, and those left behind in Norway faced a variety of experiences from living with a family member who was active in the resistence, another who lived with a Quisling – a Norwegian who sympathized with and was part of the Nazi party – and a third member who ended up in a concentration camp in Norway called Grini, at age 16.
