Around Swedish America in 
Day 23 - Fort Simpson NWT
When you publish the only monthly "Swedish" paper in North America you receive a lot of interesting stories about Swedish settlers. We can take the Lindberg family in the wilderness not too far from Fort Simpson, as an example.
Fort Simpson's origins as a community began in 1803 as Fort of the Forks. It existed solely as a fur trading site and was situated near what is now known as Fort Simpson. The Village of Fort Simpson became a permanent settlement July 1822 when the Hudson's Bay Company began construction of a trading post. Until 1910 this was "a company town", with some participation by the Anglican and Roman Catholic Missions. This was the closest to civilization for the Lindberg family said David Whillans in Cobden ON who wanted to tell of his meetings with the pioneer family. Here is his story:
I first met the Lindberg family in July 1950, at the shore in front of their log home on the Long Reach, a flat stretch of water of the Liard River not far below the confluence with the ominous Nahanni. Brothers Edwin, Eric and Arnold with mother Anna greeted us as we pulled in after two days on the river from Fort Simpson. Husband and father Ole, a WWI and Vimy Ridge survivor, originally from Björna, Sweden, who became a renowned trapper at Blackstone, had succumbed to cancer in 1947. I was at once fascinated by this family, their colourful history, their tenacity and courage.
Their story starts with Ole. At the age of 14 he had shot a moose near the farm illegally and news got out to the authorities so he had to get out of the country or face a very stiff penalty. Edwin believes he went to England to hide out for a spell and then worked on a sailing ship that hauled freight to Canada. At some point he stayed in Canada and got a job with the railroad company cutting ties. He had become a Canadian citizen prior to the outbreak of WWI. He joined the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) and spent four and a half years overseas. He was wounded in the leg and taken prisoner in Germany. He was released at the end of the war and came back to Canada. He got a job with the railroad company again and made enough money to buy two small freight canoes and a grubstake to last a year. He then teamed up with three of his friends in Edmonton to search for the gold that the McLeod Brothers supposedly had found near Prairie Creek on the Nahanni River. Ole never found any gold he and his buddies still had enough food to last for the coming winter so they built a couple of cabins not too far from the Blackstone River where Charlie Boostrum and his family lived. That is where Ole met Anna Cardinal.
Anna with French father and Native mother and seven siblings, had come to the Blackstone area by steamboat and river barge, from a farm at Lac La Biche, Alberta, in 1919. She was a slave to her stepfather so she was happy to start a new life with Ole. Their first child died at the age of three during the flu epidemic of 1928. Ole and Anna were very hard workers. Their trap-line was about 75 miles long and they would visit their traps every ten days. They had about five to six dogs that would pull a sled to haul their supplies and fur bearing animals that were caught in leg-hold traps along the trail. (There were no humane traps in those days.) This was done on snowshoes and they had out-cabins every ten to twelve miles so they seldom had to camp under a spruce tree. The Hudson’s Bay Company in Fort Simpson would usually buy the winter’s fur catch after the spring break-up. The furs could bring as much as five to seven thousand dollars in a single year and that was more than enough to feed a large family. Growing a large vegetable garden was another way to add extra food to the table. While Ole went down to Fort Simpson to sell the winter’s fur catch in the spring, Anna would plant a large garden of potatoes, carrots, beets, turnips, onions, cabbages, etc...
Shortly after my visit to the Lindbergs in 1950, Eric and Edwin became quite ill so the family came to Fort Simpson. A recently arrived young doctor quarantined Eric immediately after a diagnosis of spinal meningitis was made. He died August 7. The funeral was on the next day with no visitation. I recall vividly the Mass in the Catholic Church, the procession and burial. Almost every one in town followed a two-wheeled cart that was pushed and pulled with a wooden box, that was the coffin, bumping down a dirt road to the graveyard. After the final blessing, the casket was lowered with two ropes by four men. Immediately following this, young and old rushed forward grabbing handfuls of soil from the pile beside and throwing it into the grave. I can still hear stones hitting the pine box. Strange, I thought. Then men moved forward with shovels and they were followed by women and children who placed wildflowers on top. All I knew about funerals was mourning clothes, long tails on coats, striped trousers, top hats and hearse. There was never any soil or shovels in sight nor much people participation. The mourners just stood staring and weeping. All earth was covered with green artificial carpet. And on the mound lay carefully placed professional arrangements of flowers from the florist. The casket was lowered a few inches where it remained until the next of kin departed in limousines. But on this day in Fort Simpson, I experienced an unforgettable reality of life and death.
Edwin Lindberg, the oldest boy was also quite ill when the family came to Fort Simpson. He was first hospitalized there for four years and then was transferred to Edmonton where he had several major operations for pulmonary tuberculosis. He was discharged in 1958. The youngest child in the Lindberg family, Arnold died in an oil rig explosion at Fort Liard in 1959. Mother Anna toiled on in Fort Simpson and became an icon, loved by all. She passed way in December 1997, a few days after her 88th birthday. After returning home to Ottawa in 1950, I communicated with Edwin a few times then lost contact and later assumed that he had not survived his illness. But in 1998 I was showing a friend the photo of the two Lindberg brothers beside their log home and he said: “I know that photo, Anna showed me her boys who died young.” And then my friend told me that he had recently visited the Lindbergs and that Edwin was alive and well and living with his wife Susan near the original homestead on The Long Reach, where the family started eighty years ago.
After a confirmation phone call, I returned to Lindberg Landing with my wife Lois, where Edwin and his wife Susan greeted us at the same shore, on a similar beautiful July day, 49 years later. This reunion with the last member of a special family, for which I had great empathy and admiration, gave me tremendous pleasure. Edwin and Sue prevail at The Landing today, as unpretentious as ever, with their door wide open and a guest book to rival any “Who’s Who” in Canada. Susan tends a prolific garden and provides accommodation and meals for Nahanni trippers, and Edwin runs a log/lumber operation.