Part time Homer resident Tracy Nordstrom attended the protest event that took place at WKFL park last Sunday and drew my attention to the number of red hats people were wearing. Nordstrom, a woman with Norwegian heritage, is also a resident of Minneapolis and provided an explanation for the increasing trend of red hats in the city and how the trend originated:
“A couple of days after Renee Good was murdered, I was following social media, trying to make sense of all of it, and a post came through from a local knitting shop called Needle and Skein, and they posted a little blurb on the history of Red Hats in Norway. In about 1940 after the Nazis had invaded the country of Norway, Norwegian knitters started knitting red hats as a silent, but very visible, peaceful protest against the occupation. As soon as that came across my social media feed, I realized that that was something I needed to start doing immediately. I think a lot of us in Minneapolis felt really helpless after all the chaos that had been going on. And what I learned about the Norwegian resistance was that they very silently continued to knit. They distributed the hats. Everyone wore the hats. They were all in the know and later the Nazi government found out about it. About two years into the occupation and the frantic knitting, they banned the wearing the knitting and the distribution of hats punishable by law,” she said.
Nordstrom described another feature of the hat designed to mimic the “Nisse” hats. Nisse are Norwegian gnomes, folklore Christmas elves who are “known to inhabit farmsteads in Norway who are for the most part helpful unless they are crossed and then can be vengeful, wicked and fight back,” Nordstrom said.
“And if you think of Santa Claus mythology, the hat is very similar to a Santa Claus hat, a pointy hat. So, that's the history that I'm aware of in this particular pattern. It is a Norwegian pattern in honor of the gnomes,” Nordstrom said.
Nordstrom received an original post notice from a Minneapolis yarn shop: Needle and Skein, a shop owned by a mother and daughter. As soon as the shop began selling hat patterns for $5, they ran out of red yarn.Nordstrom said that Needle and Skein is using all of the proceeds from the yarn and patterns to support local support systems and have already raised over $400,000. This feature was confirmed in a January 31 publication from National Public Radio (https://www.npr.org/2026/01/31/nx-s1-5693767/red-hat-protest-minnesota). So, in order to find wool, Nordstrom called one of her other favorite shops in St. Paul.
“The shopkeeper who answered the phone said, “Hurry over, because the red wool is just flying out the door.” So I drove, you know, as fast as I could, to St. Paul, and I bought the six skeins of red wool that they had left. And as I said, I distribute them. And what I've read in Minneapolis and St. Paul and also now nationwide, is that a lot of shops are just completely out of red wool,” Nordstrom said.
Nordstrom said that her sense is that people are wearing the hats full time, not just during protests and the trend is starting to emerge in Homer:
“As I was knitting here in Homer the other day, I was waiting for my mother in law as she was having some physical therapy, and two women leaned over and said, “I like your hat.” They gave me a little wink, and I said, “Well, it's my resistance hat.” And they said, “we have one too.” They weren't wearing them in that moment because they were sitting in the waiting room. But I've seen them around town. I know in Minneapolis there are press pictures of people doing their grocery shopping, picking their kids up at childcare, walking around the lakes, wearing their red hats in defiance, every day, all day,” she said.
Nordstrom describes herself as a writer, storyteller and community builder and is looking forward to spending more time in Homer in the future.
Reporting from Homer, this is Emilie Springer.
