Holand lived most of his life on a farm near
Ephraim, Wisconsin. He was an early advocate of the now widely recognized realization that
Vikings visited the
New World in voyages that pre-dated
Christopher Columbus. Holand also made an effort to confirm the authenticity of the
Kensington Stone together with other
rune stones and Viking relics found throughout North America. Holland also wrote a two volume history of
Door County, Wisconsin, which was published in 1917 and founded and was the long-time president of the Door County Historical Society. The scholarly consensus has classified the Kensington Runestone as a 19th-century
hoax, with some critics directly charging its discoverer with
fabrication. Holand is most frequently associated with his two volume history of
Norwegian-American immigration. Holand spent many years collecting the stories as he traveled to various Norwegian-American settlements in the
Upper Midwest. The results were
De Norske Settlements Historie released in 1908 and
Den Siste Folkevandring Sagastubber Fra Nybyggerlivet I Amerika published in 1930. Both were written and published in
Norwegian. These works have subsequently been translated and published in English. The first was a partial translation released in 1978, and the second was a complete translation released in 2006. ==Selected bibliography==