'Stubborn Scandinavian' sticking around in Seattle

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SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Unwanted when it was proposed in the early 1960s, a bronze statue of Leif Erikson on shores of Seattle's Shilshole Bay seems to be exacting revenge.

Crews attempting to move the statue have been unable to budge the 17-foot-tall Viking from his pedestal.

"That's one stubborn Scandinavian," remarked Kristine Leander of the Leif Erikson International Foundation.

On Tuesday, workers spent eight hours drilling at the base, pounding on the concrete and tugging with the crane. They found that concrete poured into the statue's hollow legs had attached it securely to the base.

"We didn't want to pull harder. You pull hard enough, it comes apart," said Mike Hascall, co-owner of Artech, the company hired to move the statue to suburban Kent to be refurbished before it is moved to a new plaza about 200 feet away.

About two dozen people came to watch workers move the statue of the Viking many believe was the first European to reach America, 500 years before Columbus. They went home disappointed after a ceremony scheduled for Tuesday noon was postponed.

The ceremony came off as planned on Wednesday, but the statue didn't.

Leander said workers might be able to move the statue by Thursday.

The local Scandinavian community paid $42,000 for the statue 45 years ago, but the Seattle Parks Department didn't want it, according to a Seattle Times story, "on the grounds it might set a precedent for other ethnic groups."

Three years after the statue was first proposed, the Port of Seattle offered to place it at Shilshole Bay, despite it being called "not distinctive" by a member of the Municipal Arts Commission.

Source: CNN News