Around Swedish America in 
Day 28 - Meadows
Emil Hoas proudly shows off his new $1.3 million state-of-the-art barn with the latest Swedish Tetra Laval computerized milking equipment. The proud and successful farmer is also a link to a fascinating piece of Swedish history that goes back to the 13th century. This is the story of the Svenskbybor, "the Swedish village inhabitants" of Ukraine.
In 1228 some 30 Swedish families settled down on the island of Dagö in present Estonia. 150 years later, still Swedish-speaking but now under Russian rule, the "Svenskbybor" were forced to relocate to Ukraine. The 1200-mile journey took its toll and of the 1 207 men, women and children who started off, only 150 survived.
In Sweden nothing was known about this Swedish-speaking community until a Swedish-Finnish priest came upon the Svenskbybor near the River Dniepr around 1850 and a contact with Sweden was established. Some aid packages were sent during the dirty 20s and when the Svenskbybor were going to be "stalinized" after the Russian Revolution the whole village of 888 demanded and was eventually allowed to leave for Sweden in July 1929 on two freighters chartered by the Swedish Red Cross.
Emil's father John Hoas was 14 years old then and can still tell you about the dramatic escape, first by boat and then by train and ferry to Sweden. The majority of the Svenskbybor stayed in Sweden but 240 returned to Ukraine. John and his family moved to Canada where they had relatives who had moved there earlier.
Together with six other families they bought a large farm in Meadows, an hour north of Winnipeg and farmed it as a "Gammelsvenskby" cooperative until it was fully paid and split up in 1959. There is a stone marker at the farm telling the story of its beginnings, but it is even more fascinating to listen to John Hoas tell it in his old-fashioned Swedish and to find out that he has lived under the rule of Czar Nikolaus II, Lenin, Stalin, Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden, Queen Elizabeth II and now various Canadian prime ministers.