Feb 3, 2010

The frozen dead guy of Nederland Colorado

An obscure Norwegian grandfather is the star of a bizarre festival held in Nederland, Colorado.

Bredo Morstøl is probably the most famous resident of Nederland, Colorado, even though he has been dead for over ten years.


The photo above shows Trgyve Bauge holding up a picture of his grandfather Bredo Morstøl. Bauge is optimistic that cloning technology will rescue grandpa from the deep-freeze.

Trygve Bauge, a Norwegian citizen, brought the corpse of his recently deceased grandfather, Bredo Morstøl, to the United States in 1989.

The body was preserved on dry ice for the trip, and stored in liquid nitrogen at the Trans Time cryonics facility from 1990 to 1993.

In 1993, Bredo was returned to dry ice and transported to the town of Nederland, where Trygve and his mother Aud planned to create a cryonics facility of their own.

When Trygve was deported from the United States for overstaying his visa, his mother, Aud, continued keeping her father's body cryogenically frozen in a shack behind her unfinished house.

Aud was eventually evicted from her home for living in a house with no electricity or plumbing, in violation of local ordinances. At that time, she told a local reporter about her father's body, and the reporter went to the local city hall in order to let them know about Aud's fears that her eviction would cause her father's body to thaw out.

The story caused a sensation. In response, the town of Nederland added a broad new provision to Section 7-34 of its Municipal Code, "Keeping of bodies", outlawing the keeping of "the whole or any part of the person, body or carcass of a human being or animal or other biological species which is not alive upon any property". However, because of the publicity that had arisen, they made an exception for Bredo, a grandfather clause.

The local Tuff Shed supplier built a new shed to keep him in. In honor of the town's unique resident, Nederland holds an annual celebration.

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For the last seven years, the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival has been held the first weekend in March in Nederland, Colorado, home to a cryogenically frozen man, Grandpa Bredo -- the celebration's "man of honor."


The ladies above keep warm wearing stocking hats bearing the festival logo.



Nederland, population 1,337, is a quirky mountain town in northern Colorado, about 15 miles west of Boulder. Though born a mining town, it's now the haunt of young nature lovers, New Age followers and, of course, fans of the Frozen Dead Guy.