Maihaugen

The founder, Anders Sandvig, collected from old houses and farmyards within the Gudbrandsdalen valley to provide a sample of Norwegian culture and history in a museum. He start first in his backyard, but when his collection grew, the town council offered him a permanent site for the museum in 1901. The new site of the museum, which opened in 1904, was already named Maihaugen, and had been used as a picnic and meeting place for the townspeople. People had met here to celebrate the Norwegian Constitution Day and to light bonfires for Pentecost.

Maihaugen tells the history of how people have been living in the valley of Gudbrandsdalen from the Middle Ages until today. The open air museum is divided into three parts, the Rural Collection, the Town, a typical inland town with a rail way station (1900-1950), and the Residential Area with homes from the 1900s. The Garmo stave church is one of the main attractions. Maihaugen also includes a large photography archive and an indoor museum, which were constructed in 1949 and extended in preparation for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.