BILLINGS — A dragon’s head with fiery red eyes towers above the prow of the Viking ship.

Its serpent-like tongue juts out as though it were spitting fire.

That’s the plan anyway.

The ship will never set sail, but the Sons of Norway intend to launch it tonight at the Holiday Parade through downtown Billings.

Plans for the 24-foot wooden ship began four years ago.

About 15 volunteers plus another 30 woodcarvers from the Sons of Norway Jotunheimen Lodge have worked on the ship, putting in about 760 hours, said Greg Aldrich, of Aldrich Lumber, who spearheaded the building project.

From the start, Ray Albert, a 90-year-old woodcarver, wanted the ship to be a work of art.

“This is going to be a Cadillac,” Albert said. “I shouldn’t say Cadillac when I drive a Lincoln, but this is going to be awesome.”

Albert created the dragon’s head, oversaw carving of the gunwales and worked on many of the two dozen round shields along the ship’s sides. Rosemaling, a decorative style of painting with flowing curves, was done mainly by Vern McDermott and Galen Bummer.

The sweeping curves of the ship’s hull and its sturdy skeleton were built by Gary Tinnes, a finish carpenter who owns Big Sky Builders. To finish the project on schedule, Tinnes worked on the ship for a month and a half, putting off some of his own customers and coaxing two of his employees to help.

The trickiest part was getting the sleek curves of the boat’s siding just right, said Tinnes, who compared it to building a curved staircase.

He put in 186 hours on the ship, including 40 hours just building the vessel’s skeleton.

Nearly all of the labor was donated, but the lodge bought materials and paid for a professionally sewn sail.

The budget, which amounted to several thousand dollars, included a $400 grant from the Sons of Norway Foundation. At least a third of the money was spent on a custom-made trailer to haul the boat in parades.

Veteran parade-goers may remember an earlier Viking ship, which was given to the Billings lodge by the Glendive Sons of Norway in 1994. That ship was built in the 1970s by Ola Flekkerud, who immigrated to Montana from Honefoss, Norway.

“The older ship was getting to be not roadworthy, hauling from one place to another,” said Don Jore, whose pickup pulled the Glendive boat in many parades.

“We always got clapping and cheers when we went by,” said Jore, who headed the ship-building committee of six.

Children climbed aboard the Glendive boat to hear Norwegian folk stories at the annual Festival of Culture at Rocky Mountain College, and it was a favorite spot for storytelling and singing during the Sons of Norway’s Bjornetann Language and Culture camp at the Lions Camp at Red Lodge.

Rather than refurbish the old ship, the lodge decided to start from scratch, Jore said. In fall 2005, the Billings lodge gave the Glendive ship to the Fjell Heim Lodge in Big Timber.

That year, Aldrich started researching the new ship’s design and made a foot-long model.

Oddly enough, when he searched the Internet, he found plans for the ship offered by an Italian company. Using the foot-long boat as a model, Aldrich bankrolled building a test boat, a 14-foot Viking ship designed as a children’s playhouse.

It was raffled during the Playhouse Parade fundraiser at Rimrock Mall in 2008.

The ship is modeled on the Oseberg ship, an elaborately carved Viking burial ship from 800 A.D. The longboat, which was unearthed in 1904 at a burial mound on a farm in Norway, is one of the best surviving examples of a Viking Age ship.

It had holes for 15 pairs of oars and room for 30 men. The Sons of Norway replica nixed the oars as a potential parade hazard.

A dozen carved shields on each side of the boat stand above the gunwales.

The first shield on each side depicts the helmeted head of a fierce Viking warrior. Other shields bear abstract designs in an acanthus style of flowing C-shaped and S-shaped curves. Rosemaling ringing each shield relies on similar sweeping curves.

Albert, who taught woodcarving for 27 years, put more than a hundred hours into the ship’s carvings. The 3-foot dragon’s head was the most physically challenging.

“It’s a monster to handle,” Albert said.

When he brought the head down to the lumber yard to fit it on the ship’s bow, he needed help to lift it out of his car trunk.

Next summer, Aldrich hopes volunteers will add a carved rudder and rosemaling on the ship’s stern. Although he’s eager to see the parade crowd’s reaction, he’s already satisfied with the accomplishment.

“Once that dragon head went on and the boat all came together, that was the crowning moment,” he said.

Aldrich expects the ship to appear in area parades for years to come.

“It’s just showing different cultural things that Norske do,” Aldrich said. “I’m not Norwegian, but my wife is. I just do what I’m told.”

Contact Donna Healy at dhealy@billingsgazette.com or at 657-1292.