I'm part Nordic, with a mother who is 50% Swede and 50% Norwegian, and I can attest that the Nordic aloofness (and kindness/politeness) jumped oceans.

Not sure what particular blend of things landed in northwestern Minnesota, but my (admittedly over-generalized) experience of nordic folk in the region is that they want two things:

1) For people to give them space

2) For people to like them, since happy people don't cause trouble and crowd their space.