Finally, the words of all those songs will make sense.

The dance steps will have new meaning.

They might even understand what all this boiled fish has been about all these years.

Eight members of Whidbey’s own Young Skandia Dansers are going home to Norway. Or, at least they’re hoping to, if they raise awareness of their pending September trip and enough funds to reach their homeland.

The Young Skandia Dansers are a nonprofit group dedicated to fostering Scandinavian culture through song and dance, and are led by Linda Spencer.

Eight of the dancers plan travel to Norway, along with their parents, next year as the next step in understanding their culture. All of them have family ties to Norway.

Spencer built the itinerary to make the trip unlike any guided vacation tour.

During the girls’ two weeks in Norway they will experience farm life, cruise the Hardanger Fjord, see breathtaking mountains, see what school is like for Norwegian children, and visit Viking burial sites and medieval remains. They won’t just be staying in hotels, but in youth hostels and with Norwegian families.

“We’ve really been working to cultivate unique experiences that will last a lifetime for these girls,” Spencer said.

And while they are in Norway, many of their days will be spent dancing and sharing songs and dance with Norwegian dance groups.

“It will be a wonderful thing to see children from two different areas of the world coming together to share a common dance together,” Spencer said.

Spencer said she’s already confirmed dancing with groups in Oslo, Lillehammer, Trondheim and Alesund, and said that many more will probably pop up as people hear that the girls are there.

Spencer has been corresponding with the Norwegian royal family about the possibility of them performing for King Harald V and his family. Both of the king’s children were folk dancers in their youth, and remain active with children’s activities as adults, so Spencer is optimistic.

“It’s exciting for these girls, the idea of dancing for royalty, and I know they will take extreme pride in having an opportunity to do so,” Spencer said.

The trip to Norway will also be a pilgrimage for many of the girls and their families.

Olav Valle can’t wait for his two daughters — Ingrid, 8, and Olivia, 10 — to meet their 93-year-old great-grandmother, along with numerous aunts, uncles and cousins who live in Os, Norway.

“I want to ask her about what is in Norway and what it was like when she was a kid,” Ingrid Valle said.

Valle said that his father still travels back to Norway frequently, and that he’s been lucky enough to travel back four times between his youth and adult years.

“I’ve always been proud of my heritage and grew up attending Sons of Norway meetings,” Valle said. “Norway is something I want my daughters to experience first hand, to know what it was like for me to be able to visit and what it was like for our family to live there.”

The trip is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a group of young women who work so hard preparing for festivals, Valle said.

“I can’t wait to meet new people, visit family, learn new songs and eat new food,” Olivia Valle said.

While the Dansers have been fundraising since late August, it is just now that the fundraising kicks into high gear.

Beginning with the Nov. 12 Nordic Fest, the Dansers will hold a number of fundraising events, including an ongoing raffle that will be decided at the Danser’s annual Sankta Lucia Fest in December.

They have an account set up at Whidbey Island Bank, under “Young Skandia Dansers,” as well as a PayPal account to accept donations.

The girls expenses will be around $20,000. They have $6,000 in the bank. Funds raised will go to the dancers only. Parents and group leaders have to pay their own way.

Spencer was born and raised in Oslo, Norway, so she hopes the girls can experience the country she grew up in and learn to love the culture for years to come.

“Bringing someone’s heritage to life is so important, whether they’re Norwegian, Indian, Scottish, whatever,” Spencer said.

The group of eight will come back with new dances they can teach the other girls next year to help the Young Skandia Dansers continue. When the girls return, Spencer would like to the girls to present what they learned.

The trip will be a bittersweet ending for Spencer, who will be stepping down as the leader of the Dansers. She founded the group nine years ago.

“I will no longer be with the group, but the Young Skandia Dansers will continue. There’s just too strong of a need for it not to,” she said.

The Young Skandia Dansers is dedicated to teaching young children dance, songs, crafts and other lessons in Scandinavian culture.

It began with a group of 12 dancers and has remained strong ever since, often with the troupe averaging 20-25 children each year. This year, there are two dozen dancers ranging in age from 5-14.

While the current year has all girls in the group, boys are more than welcome to join and have often been members.

The Young Skandia Dansers practice once a week from September through May.

During their meetings they learn authentic folk dances and songs from Scandinavian countries. Their repertoire includes 12 songs sung in Norwegian and 10 dances for performances.

“My favorite is the ribbon dance because we get to use real ribbons,” Ingrid Valle said.

For their annual Sankta Lucia Festival performance, they learn to sing in Swedish.

The Dansers are a regular sight at the Whidbey Island Nordic Festival each November, the Sankta Lucia Festival in December. They can also be found at local parades and at Scandinavian events around Washington.

They are unmistakable in their traditional Scandinavian costumes: white shirt, red vest, black skirt and traditional adornments.

For the Nilsen family of Langley, the Young Skandia Dansers have been a way for Kate, 13, and Sophie, 9, to have an automatic link to their Norwegian grandmother.

“She loved watching them dance and sharing with them her culture,” said mother Trish Nilsen.

Since the grandmother’s death earlier this year, the girls’ participation in the Dansers and the trip to Norway will be sort of a tribute.

“These girls are all ambassadors for their culture in America and the only way for it to perpetuate in the future,” Nilsen said.

Whether people know it or not, Spencer said, the Young Skandia Dansers are a part of a large Scandinavian heritage on Whidbey Island.

More than 100 women belong to Whidbey’s Ester Moe Lodge, the local chapter of the Daughters of Norway. The local chapter of the Sons of Norway, the Whidbey Island Nordic Lodge, is also going strong.

“There’s a large Scandinavian population at our church, Trinity Lutheran,” Trish Nilsen said. “That’s why you’ll always hear Norwegian jokes there.”

While most of the Dansers are of Scandinavian descent, for some, Scandinavian is not their heritage, but a way to learn dance, song and a new culture.

Ten of the girls are daughters or granddaughters of Ester Moe Lodge members. They are the future Daughters of Norway. Their youth is a vital link for many in the local Scandinavian community. They are the link to the old country and the traditions of yore. They mean a continuance of songs and dances that have been around for centuries.

“It’s a difficult thing for children to be going to another country and to someone else’s home. But they’ll have an immediate link with the people around them because of the culture they’ve already learned,” Spencer said. “They’ll sing, dance and play in the same language. They’ll come home and be the bearers of tradition.”