About the Project

Although Swedish-Canadians are generally modest, most will agree that the Swedish legacy is a rich one deserving of celebration. A large number of books has already been written about Swedish-Americans and a few about Swedes in North America, but the only ones published so far in Canada are local histories and sections in national works, such as Canada's People. No book deals exclusively with the Swedish experience in Canada, except for one bibliography. The goal of this project is to produce a comprehensive history, thereby establishing a permanent record of the impact of Swedes and their descendants in Canada.

During the past century and a quarter some hundred thousand Swedes immigrated to Canada, settling for the most part in western Canada. The Swedes in Canada project will cover their experiences from Atlantic to Pacific and in the north. It will look at cultural changes through the years and how activities were affected by earlier experiences in Sweden and by their situation in Canada. Other aspects include migrations within Canada and across the US boundary, the development of Swedish communities in rural areas and in cities and towns, the attitudes of descendants towards their Swedish heritage, and the differences between early immigrants and their modern counterparts. 

The project is sponsored by the Lakehead Social History Institute in Thunder Bay, Ontario, an organization of community and university researchers. Co-Director, Dr. Ernie Epp, is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Lakehead University. Lakehead University will provide charitable receipts for financial contributions and the Institute will administer these funds and oversee the research and writing of the history. Donald W. Sjöberg is National Coordinator for fundraising. For further information or to offer assistance, contact sjoberg@swedesincanada.ca

Researcher Elinor Berglund Barr welcomes your comments, expressions of interest, and best wishes. barr@swedesincanada.ca

Also invaluable when planning travel for research purposes is information about documentary sources in private hands, keeping in mind that the scope of the project is Swedes in Canada. Documentary sources include photographs, diaries, letters, family trees, family histories, printed family trees (only concerning the immigrant, his/her parents and descendants), memoirs, minute books of organizations, newspaper clippings, brochures, official documents, memorabilia and so on. There will also be a need for services such as translation from Swedish to English. Please spread the word.

Together, we can "catch the vision" and turn the dream into reality.

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