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X-CRAFTOld Ways. Lost Skills. Useful Knowledge.
📅 October 2–4, 2026
📍 McGowan Farm | Mankato, Minnesota
🏕️ Camping Weekend
👥 Limited to 25 people
🔒 Invite Only (see write up)
🌧️ Rain or Shine
So… what is X-Craft?
That’s where it gets interesting.
The X stands for whatever comes to the table.
An old skill.
A nearly forgotten craft.
Something your grandparents taught you.
Something useful you figured out last year.
Something modern that everyone else should probably know too.
Because somewhere along the way, we stopped passing a lot of things down.
How to preserve a harvest.
How to mend instead of replace.
How to make something with our own hands.
How to recognize useful plants.
How to make fire.
How to navigate.
How to grow and preserve food.
How to fix things.
How to take something from beginning to end and actually know how it works.
Some of these skills are old.
Some are becoming rare.
Some are just incredibly useful.
And some are worth keeping alive simply because someone still knows how to do them.
Maybe you can vegetables.
Make soap.
Forage for food.
Bake bread.
Start a fire using old methods.
Field dress game.
Work with leather or wood.
Sharpen tools.
Sew or mend.
Grow something.
Preserve something.
Repair something.
Or maybe you know some completely modern skill that makes the person next to you say:
“Wait… show me how to do that.”
That’s X-Craft.
But X-Craft is about more than skills.
It’s about people.
Actually talking to each other.
Sharing the things we're passionate about.
Finding interests we may have forgotten about.
Learning something simply because it fascinates us.
Sitting around a fire instead of staring at a screen.
Laughing.
Making things.
Getting our hands dirty.
And being part of a community instead of just standing on the outside watching one.
Northern Woman Productions, producers of the Great Northern Viking Festival and A Night in Valhalla, is bringing together just 35 people for this new hands-on weekend at McGowan Farm.
There will be a basic schedule of skills and activities so you'll know what's happening ahead of time.
Some people will bring something they know and want to share.
Some will mostly want to learn.
Most of us will probably do a little of both.
You don't just watch X-Craft. You take part in it.
🔥 Learn it.
🪵 Make it.
🥕 Preserve it.
🛠️ Fix it.
🌿 Find it.
🍲 Cook it.
⚔️ Try it.
And share what you know.
⚔️ THE X-CRAFT CHALLENGE
We're mixing some fun into the weekend too.
The X-Craft Challenge will bring games, friendly competition, teamwork and chances to put some of what we know — or just learned — to use.
You may discover a hidden talent.
You may discover you are absolutely terrible at something.
Either way, we're going to have fun finding out.
🍲 WE EAT TOGETHER
Meals will be cooked together as a community.
Everyone will have a small part somewhere along the way — preparing, cooking, cleaning up or helping where needed.
We'll organize that ahead of time so everyone knows their part.
Then we sit down and eat together.
🔥 FRIDAY NIGHT — COME FIND THE FIRE
Arrival begins Friday at 6:00 PM.
Set up camp. Get settled.
Then come find the fire.
Friday night is intentionally simple.
Sit around the fire with friends.
Meet someone new.
Tell a story if you have one.
Bring an instrument and play.
Share a song.
Talk.
Laugh.
Or just sit around the fire and enjoy being there.
There doesn't need to be anything more complicated than that.
🔥 SATURDAY
Saturday is our full X-Craft day — hands-on skills, making, learning, communal meals, the X-Craft Challenge and time together.
When the day winds down, the sauna opens Saturday night.
We may also offer an optional Norse-inspired ceremonial sauna experience, limited to just 8 people. More information will come later.
🌲 SUNDAY
We'll continue X-Craft Sunday morning and early afternoon before breaking camp and wrapping up by 3:00 PM.
🔒 WHO IS INVITED?
X-Craft is an invite-only Northern Woman Productions community gathering.
Invitations will include:
⚔️ Great Northern Viking Festival staff
🔥 Past Great Northern Viking Festival and A Night in Valhalla volunteers
🛡️ Past Northern Woman Productions Kickstarter supporters
⚒️ Past vendors and entertainers who want to come back this time simply to participate and have fun
🤝 Friends and connections within our community
You don't need to be an expert.
You don't need to have some rare craft to teach.
Curiosity counts.
Maybe you come knowing something.
Maybe you come because there's something you've always wanted to learn.
Maybe you rediscover something you used to love doing.
Maybe you meet someone who is just as excited about some strange little interest as you are.
That's part of this too.
🏕️ THE BASICS
📅 October 2–4, 2026
📍 McGowan Farm — Mankato, MN
🔥 Friday arrival begins at 6:00 PM
🌲 Sunday concludes at 3:00 PM
🏕️ Onsite camping Friday & Saturday
🍲 Communal meals
🔥 Hands-on skills & shared knowledge
⚔️ X-Craft Challenge
🧖 Saturday night sauna
🌧️ Rain or shine
👥 Limited to 35 people
🔒 Invite only
💲 $75 weekend contribution to help cover the basic costs of hosting
SIGN-UP COMING SOON.
For now...
Save the date.
And start thinking about one question:
What do you know?
What did someone teach you that people don't seem to know anymore?
What do you wish someone had taught you?
What are you passionate about that you haven't made time for lately?
What do you know today that someone else might find incredibly useful?
And what happens when we put 35 curious people together and start sharing those things again?
🔥 X-CRAFT
Old Ways. Lost Skills. Useful Knowledge.
Come back to the fire.
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Event venue
Great Northern Viking Festival, 20001 Hawkeye Ln, Mankato, MN 56001-7355, United States
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