Growing up in the Slovenian Alps, Lovrenc Lavtižar decided to devote his life to priesthood. Eventually, he served as a missionary to the Native Americans of Minnesota, where he lost his life while serving God.

Born in 1820 in Srednji Vrh, a tiny village with a spectacular view of the Julian Alps, Lavtižar completed his studies in Ljubljana and became a priest. He began his service in the town of Dobrova and then moved on to Trebnje.

It was then that he received a letter from Bishop Frederic Baraga, a Slovenian missionary in the Upper Midwest, who invited the young priest to move to the United States. In 1854, Lavtižar made his long journey and first settled in what is now Harbor Springs, Michigan. He then traveled to Minnesota, where was named an assistant of Bishop Francis Pierz, himself born in Slovenia.

This was a time when the Catholic Church was determined to “civilize” Native Americans, and indigenous beliefs were held in little regard. Lavtižar was a founding member of a new mission in Red Lake, and eventually became the sole person in charge of the mission. Over the next few months, he would visit various Ojibwa villages, where he would spread the gospel.

On day in 1858, he was returning to Red Lake from one of his trips when he was caught in a blizzard. Blinded by the snow and the whiteout conditions, he became disoriented and died near Red Lake, aged just 37.

Today, a statue in front of the church at Kranjska Gora, not far from where he was born, serves as a reminder of Lavtižar – a local man who dared to travel to the other side of the world and met his fate in a land so far away from his home in the heart of the Slovenian mountains.