David Gjestson: FROM NORWEGIAN ROOTS - Volume I

By David Gjestson

One man's life. Eight decades of American change. More adventures, arguments, close calls, and Norwegian stubbornness than could comfortably fit into an ordinary memoir. (Volume I)

Born in Stoughton, Wisconsin, in 1939, David Gjestson grew up in a working-class Norwegian-American family during an era of coal furnaces, penny candy, radio dramas, neighborhood characters, homemade entertainment, and children who were permitted to wander much farther than modern parents would consider sensible.

But From Norwegian Roots reaches far beyond childhood nostalgia. David recounts his college years, his commission as a United States Navy officer, and three Vietnam-era tours aboard the aircraft carrier USS Hancock. He then follows the unlikely trail that led him into a thirty-year career with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, where he became deeply involved in wildlife management, public lands, conservation planning, hunting regulations, historic preservation, and the creation and protection of the Lower Wisconsin State Riverway.

Along the way came marriage to Laura, the raising of two sons, complicated family relationships, professional triumphs and political collisions, hunting and fishing expeditions, canoe trips, horses, wilderness journeys, international travel, repeated moves across the country, and the accumulating comedy of trying to remain active while the machinery of the human body begins filing formal complaints.

David tells these stories with an eye for revealing detail and an unwillingness to sand away the rough edges. He writes openly about ambition, alcohol, faith, family neglect, career conflict, changing beliefs, aging, and the lessons that become visible only after one has lived long enough to reconsider the evidence.

Part family history, part conservation chronicle, part military memoir, and part sprawling personal scrapbook, From Norwegian Roots preserves not merely the record of one life but the texture of a changing America.

It is a story of hard work, public service, outdoor adventure, endurance, regret, laughter, and the enduring value of family, friendship, memory, and remaining upright as long as possible.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HD7KCT26
• ISBN13: 9798191123592
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 2.51 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 8.5" x 11.0"