A Minnesotan who knew little about her Scandinavian roots won a Swedish reality TV show

Like a lot of Minnesotans, Sally Franson has been exposed to Scandinavian culture: meatballs, lefse, ABBA, Nordic noir crime dramas, events at the American Swedish Institute.

"Ikea obviously," Franson said.

But the Minneapolis woman never really got in touch with her Swedish heritage until she became one of the winners in a Swedish reality television show.

Franson, a novelist and a visiting English professor at Macalester College, appeared in "Allt för Sverige," in which 10 Swedish Americans are recruited to come to the homeland of their ancestors, learn about their heritage and compete in "extreme cultural challenges."

Franson did so well at events like driving an old Volvo around a dirt track, memorizing Swedish pop songs, and calculating distances and volume in the metric system, that she became one of the big winners on the show.

Her prize wasn't a chest full of krona (the Swedish currency) or a vintage Saab sportscar. Instead, she got to meet her Swedish relatives. (This is Swedish public television, after all.)

But for Franson, the experience was priceless.

"I think I probably cried 15 times on Swedish national television," she said. "It's a very powerful experience understanding in a visceral way where I come from."

The television show helped Franson trace her Swedish roots through her late father, a Lutheran pastor, whose great-grandfather immigrated from Sweden to the U.S.

She learned of the hardships that her ancestors often had to endure in those days, ranging from infant mortality to selling everything for the chance to get to the U.S.

Franson, 38, said she got to visit an old family homestead and meet cousins she never knew she had.

"To see the place where my great-great-great-great-grandmother had a child out of wedlock and was kicked out of her town and scorned, but then built her own farm and had a badass life anyway, it was so fascinating," Franson said.

Franson first sent in a video application to be on the show in December 2019 after a friend suggested it. She auditioned and was chosen for the show shortly afterwards, but the pandemic delayed production until the summer of 2021. She spent five weeks in Sweden filming the show's 10th season which recently aired on the Swedish SVT television network. (American viewers can see episodes on the dailymotion.com website.)

This isn't the first time a Minnesotan has starred in a show like this. In 2014, Beth Butala of Bloomington won the Norwegian version of the show, "Alt for Norge."

Because of her experience on the show, Franson said she'll be returning to Sweden this year to see friends and family.

"It surprises me how much it's changed me," she said.