Editing Chisago County, Minnesota (section)

==Culture==
[[File:Svenskar i Amerika. Olof Olsson från Nerikes Kil, utvandrade ca 1880 till Rush City, Minnesota - Nordiska Museet - NMA.0039211.jpg|thumb|250x250px|Swedish immigrants in [[Rush City, Minnesota]], in 1887.]]

Chisago County is strongly influenced by the [[German American|German]], [[Swedish emigration to the United States|Swedish]] and [[Norwegian American|Norwegian immigrants]] who settled there in the mid-19th century. It provided the setting for much of Swedish author [[Vilhelm Moberg]]'s suite of novels [[The Emigrants (novels)|''The Emigrants'']] in the 1950s, and Moberg engaged in both archival and oral history research for his books to recreate the area's early Swedish immigration. Sculptor Ian Dudley's bronze statue of Moberg stands in Chisago City's park. 

Moberg's fictional characters Karl-Oskar and Kristina Nilsson from Ljuder parish in [[Småland]] in 1850 with three small children and a group of relatives and neighbors, during the period of the first wave of mass emigration from Sweden. 

Moberg penned Karl Oskar as the first to settle around Lake Ki-Chi-Saga (from the [[Ojibwe language|Ojibwe]] ''Ki-chi-saga-igun'', or ''Gichi-zaaga'igan'' in contemporary spelling), meaning "big lake with an outlet", which was later shortened to [[Chisago Lake Township, Chisago County, Minnesota|Lake Chisago]]. The annual Karl Oskar Days in [[Lindstrom, Minnesota|Lindström]] honor the early settlers' heritage.