Exploring Wisconsin’s Great River Road, correspondent Tom Wilmer visits with Kristin Smith-Proctor a resident of the tiny town of Stockholm, where she lives in a century-old brick schoolhouse and owns Scandihoo—Nordic Style with a Kick gift shop, and Alan Nugent, owner of the legendary Stockholm Pie Company and General Store where his homemade pies have received praise from USA Today and Gourmet Magazine.
Next up, Lisa Marshall (who was communications manager with the Wisconsin Department of Tourism at the time of the interview in 2018) shares recommendations about experiencing Wisconsin’s legendary fall foliage and wintertime activities.
Wisconsin’s historic villages dotting the Great River Road are a part of the network of 2,000 mile-long state and local byways that follow the route of the mighty Mississippi for over 2,000 miles.
The village of Stockholm (an hour and a quarter from St. Paul, Minneapolis, Minnesota), claims a permanent population of less than eighty people but Stockholm’s population burgeons during the summertime with tourists and seasonal residents.
Each July, more than 10,000 visitors show up for the annual Stockholm Art Fair. During the spring and fall, thousands of birders flock to the River Road communities to experience North America’s largest annual bird migration.
"Urban-immigrant" artists and culinary wizards have settled in the villages in recent decades, many leaving behind lucrative big-city professional careers—infusing the communities with a palpable creative artist/maker energy.
The Wisconsin River Road-Stockholm show was originally broadcast September 7, 2018 and is re-shared as a “Best-of-the-Best” Journeys of Discovery podcast--celebrating 33 years sharing audio travel stories and digital media content via NPR affiliate KCBX, serving California’s Central Coast.
You are invited to subscribe to the six time Lowell Thomas Award-winning travel podcast, Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer, featured on the NPR Podcast Directory, Apple Podcast, the NPR One App & Stitcher.com and more than twenty other podcast hosting sites including IheartRadio
