Seattle Freeze: Can we blame it on the Norwegians?
The front line of Freeze? Syttende Mai parade in Ballard (Photo: HMPinnsvinet via Wikimedia Commons)
The Seattle Freeze — that unwelcoming sensation experienced by newcomers to this city — has practically become an institution. Google it and you’ll see what I mean: countless articles, blog posts, and discussion threads exist on the subject. It has its own entry on Wikipedia, and there is even a meet-up group working to defeat it, the Seattle Anti-Freeze.
If it seems like the Freeze has been around forever, you might be surprised to learn that it only dates back to around 2005. That’s the year that a Seattle Times reporter, Julia Sommerfeld, popularized the term for her pioneering article on the subject. Sommerfeld also identified some of the likely culprits for its existence, which to this day, are trotted out in any discussion of the Freeze: the gloomy weather; the socially-awkward tech workers; and — of course — the Scandinavians.
The Scandinavians? Why would anybody blame the Scandinavians for the Seattle Freeze?
Here it is in a nutshell. In the late-19th Century, people from the Nordic countries flocked to Seattle, becoming the city’s largest immigrant group of that era. Their typically Scandinavian personality traits — reserve, reticence, and perhaps a slight guardedness of strangers — passed down through the generations, and manifest themselves as the present-day Seattle Freeze. That’s the theory, anyway.
It was dubbed “the Scandinavian factor” in a recent program about the Seattle Freeze on KPLU radio. Stina Cowen, who is Swedish and works at the Nordic Heritage Museum, was interviewed for that program; I spoke with her, and with Kristine Leander, Executive Director of the Swedish Cultural Center, about the Freeze. Both women insist that Scandinavians are warm people who do embrace new friendships … eventually. Leander is quick to point out the many positive contributions Scandinavians have made to this city. On balance, she says, the Scandinavians come out way ahead.
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