Arrival Paper Geese with St Michael’s Church

Every autumn, nearly 40,000 barnacle geese arrive from their homeland of Norway. However, during the summer of 1940, we welcomed an additional 300 visitors from Norway—men who fled their country due to the Second World War in search of shelter and support. St. Michael’s Church played a significant role in this effort.

To honour these 300 individuals, we are creating a collective artwork: a visual representation in the form of paper-folded geese. We hope to display this artwork within the church or on its grounds.

We invite you to join our workshops and make a paper goose. While our initial goal is to create 300 individual paper-folded geese, we aim to honour all the Norwegians who sought refuge in Dumfries by the end of the war, totalling 1,100 men and women! Let’s get folding!