Welcome to my third Newsletter, and many thanks for joining me on this five-year journey to research and write a comprehensive history of Swedes in Canada.
The big news this time is my trip to Sweden in May and June. As expected, my luggage on the return trip was bulging with research material unavailable in North America. I toured southern Sweden for a month, spent a week in northern Sweden and the rest of the time in Stockholm, staying with a relative, Per Ersson and his wife Rayhni. My decision to speak Swedish as much as possible was a good one. The people I met seemed more comfortable, and therefore more talkative, in their first language.
Listening for the cuckoo with Vasa members
A member of Calmare Nyckel Vasa Lodge, Margareta Berg, had invited me to Kalmar to meet her group and tell them about the project in person. They planned an early morning walk that day to listen for the cuckoo, a lovely spring ritual. The sun was just slanting through the trees, making patterns on the mossy ground, when we heard a faint "cuckoo, cuckoo" among the chorus of other birds. This was the sound my maternal grandmother longed for most after she came to Canada, so it held special meaning for me.
Our picnic destination was a grassy clearing beside the Baltic Sea, where benches had been set up around an open fire. It was here that I gave my first talk in Swedish. Although the talk was short, it was well received. Margareta had already introduced me to individual members while we cooked and ate Swedish sausages slathered with mustard from Skåne, potato salad, and other picnic fare. Afterwards we played rustic ring-toss type games, cleverly set up, then President Lars Carlson made presentations to our hosts. The photo is of Lars, Margareta and me (my glasses are the kind that turn dark in the sun), with the Baltic in the background.
Elinor, Margareta and Lars, 2004
Later in the summer Vasa members in Sweden had the opportunity to meet Ted Simonson of Winnipeg at this year’s Swedish-American of the Year Celebration in Växjö. He attended as the member of the Executive Board of Grand Lodge representing Canada. Ted has been researching at the Hudson’s Bay Archives on behalf of the project, looking for information about Jacob Fahlström, the first Swede in Manitoba. Jacob arrived in 1809, a few years before the Selkirk settlers.
Växjö, home of the Emigrant Institute
Vilhelm Moberg, author of the famous trilogy about a Swedish couple who settled in Minnesota, was one of the founders of the Emigrant Institute in 1965. His voluminous papers provided the nucleus around which the present archives and library evolved. I spent five days there doing research, also renewing acquaintance with the former director, Ulf Beijbom, who in 1991 arranged for publication of my bibliography, The Swedish Experience in Canada. I also met his successor, Per Nordahl, and presented him with a copy of Dr. Epp’s new publication, Nordic People in Canada: A Study in Demography 1861-2001, which was compiled as part of the Swedes in Canada project. View the details (opens in new browser window).
Archivist Christina Persson facilitated the research and photocopying. Among the significant finds was the collection of Otto Landelius, a Swedish journalist who toured North America during the 1920s giving lectures and collecting information, some of which appears in his book Swedish Place Names in North America. His collection on Canada includes printed obituaries, clippings, articles and profiles up to the 1950s, in three large binders, a veritable gold mine!
A dear friend, genealogist Rolf Brodin, drove from his home six hours away to help me read the Swedish correspondence. He also singled out immigrants to Canada from the families of Sweden’s nobility. In the photo, Rolf (with beard) and I are enjoying Swedish cuisine in a heritage setting (Ryttmästaregården beside the ruins of Kronoberg Castle) with Göran Simmingsköld and his wife Gunilla, the photographer. Our families were friends long ago. Gunilla’s grandmother returned to Sweden in 1924, after her husband drowned near my home town of Ignace, Ontario.
Elinor with Rolf and Goran, 2004
Conference in Denmark
I had registered to present a paper at the Nordic Association for English Studies conference at Århus University. A highlight of the trip was crossing from Sweden to Denmark on Öresund bridge, the longest in the world at 17 km. Joanna Daxell, of Sherbrooke University, Quebec, kindly offered to drive me because we were both presenting papers. Since then, she has received the Nils William Olsson Scholarship to study at the Swenson Center in Illinois. Congratulations, Joanna!
The subject of my paper was the Swedes in Canada project and its progress, illustrated with photographs to make it more interesting. I had already presented my paper to the Rotary Club in Ronneby, in Swedish, but this time it was in English, the language of the conference. Afterwards several people offered to help in various ways, including Robert Christian Thomsen, director of the Canadian Studies Centre, who presented me with some of the Centre’s publications and in return accepted a copy of Dr. Epp’s book.
Göteborg, a major emigration port
My dad and his family left Sweden in 1907 from the city of Göteborg on the west coast. What a thrill it was to walk to the harbour almost a century later, along the same street, past the customs building (now a casino), to the pier where they had boarded their ship so long ago! My hosts, Inga and Evert Olsson, were kindred spirits and showed me many interesting places, such as an open air fish market and a lookout over the harbour. Inga is a member of Långarydssläkt, noted in the 1988 Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest recorded family tree. We met through e-mail, when she shared information about family members living in Canada.
Göteborg is the home of the Royal Society for Swedish Culture Abroad (Riksföreningen Sverigekontakt), a non-governmental organization founded in 1908 to maintain contact with Swedes throughout the world. Lennart Limberg, longtime general secretary, kindly treated us to a tour of the office, which included several rooms full of archival material waiting to be sorted and catalogued. Then he presented me with a copy of his forthcoming history of the organization, and the six publications that resulted from a research project he led 1988-97, titled Göteborgs-Emigranten. Lennart sat on the publications committee, along with Per Clemensson of the provincial records office and my buddy Lars Ljungmark of Göteborg University, author of a book about Swedes in Winnipeg as well as several articles about immigration to Canada. During the 1980s and 1990s Lars and I presented several papers during the same session at conferences. At the time we were the only scholars studying Swedes in Canada. I was very sorry to hear that Lars had recently suffered a stroke and was not allowed visitors.
Former customs house Göteborg
We also visited the home of Harry Macfie, the first person in Sweden to build Canadian canoes (see Newsletter #1). Harry’s granddaughter, Eva Loader, and her husband, David, welcomed us warmly, and showed us his workshop. The photo shows David holding a giant vertebra that Harry brought from "America". Very little had been changed in Harry's workshop, even the plans he used were still handing on the wall. In the house, Eva had arranged photographs and books on a table covered with the Macfie tartan. She said that when Harry’s grandfather immigrated from Scotland, he brought curling stones with him and introduced the game to Sweden. It seems as though the Macfie family has contributed substantially to their chosen country. Earlier, I had met Mats Rehnström in Stockholm. He and his father founded the Harry Macfie Canoe Club during the 1980s, and since then several members have canoed in Canada.
Eva, Elinor and David
A hearty thank you
A lot of things have had to be left out, the above just hits some of the high spots. If space allowed I would have told you about touring the island of Öland, my trip to northern Sweden, a family baptism in Säter church in Dalarna, and much more. You would have heard about my meeting with Jörgen Hedman, author of several books and articles about the Svenskbyborna; Erik Kjellberg, who was so helpful at the National Library; Dag Blanck; Arnold Barton; Elisabeth Thorsell; and a host of others. I met many people in Sweden, sometimes for the project, sometimes for personal reasons, and sometimes for both. Everybody, without exception, was kind and helpful. Many thanks to all for making my research trip both fruitful and enjoyable.
Things I liked about Sweden
No overhead wires to spoil the scenery. Clean streets. Art in public places. Bicycle and walking paths. Well kept castles and castle ruins. Lots of green spaces in urban centres. Homes with a loom beside the dishwasher. Reliable public transportation. Roundabouts on the highways, much safer than traffic lights. Giant windmills generating electricity. Cemeteries dating back to 600 A.D. Wildflowers in profusion. Live outdoor music. A cell phone in everybody’s pocket or purse. Spas.
Next Newsletter
Applicants for the position of research assistant will be interviewed soon. I am looking forward to having help to sort and organize the research material, so that the project can stay on schedule. There is more than 24 linear feet (eight meters) to make readily accessible by the time writing begins in the fall of 2005, a huge task. You can expect to see some of the more interesting items in the next newsletter!
Travel plans
5-6 November 2004, to Minneapolis to take part in a conference about Swedish imprints, also to do research at several institutions.
20-21 November 2004, to Toronto to take part in SWEA’s Swedish Christmas Fair at Harbourfront, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., also to do research at the Archives of Ontario.
A tip for people doing family research
Why not subscribe to Swedish-American Genealogist, a quarterly journal published by the Swenson Center? There are lots of interesting articles and updates, also a column for genealogical queries. Check it out at http://www.augustana.edu/swenson/