The theme for this year’s BC Heritage week was “The Tie That Binds.” In celebration, I attended the City of Nanaimo’s 2019 Heritage Summit at the Nanaimo Museum which included a presentation by Christine Muetzner, manager of the Nanaimo Community Archives. In her talk, Muetzner spoke of how stories told over the years bind together the past, present, and future. She reminded the audience that each and every one of us has a story to tell, and we should think about sharing it. This thought inspired me to continue to explore my family’s history, and to write about my discoveries. While I didn’t find answers to all my questions, I did learn a lot. And one thing that became clear: family is another tie that binds.
Through researching and writing the story of my Norwegian great-grandparents, Ole Olsen and Konstanse Fyhn, I reached out to several relatives whom I had never met before. Not only were they happy to help me with my questions, but they were also curious about both the information I’d pulled together, and about my own little family. I was touched. Even though we shared a common ancestor (sometimes rather distant), these were basically strangers. Why would they care about me? But they did. And I cared about them too.
So after asking a lot of questions, and reading many books about the Bella Coola Valley, Sidney, and Norwegian immigrants, I’m happy to share a series of blog posts about my great-grandparents, Ole and Konstanse. It is the story of their individual emigrations from Norway; the life they built together in Hagensborg in the Bella Coola Valley, and their eventual move to Vancouver Island, which three generations later, I call my home. I never met Ole and Konstanse, but I feel a connection now, not only with them, but also with some of their other descendants whom I’ve met through my research.
As I finish writing parts of my Norwegian family’s story, I will link them to this post. The first part, Norway to Bella Coola: Ole Olsen, is a look at my great-grandfather’s emigration from Norway, his eventual settlement in the Bella Coola Valley with his two brothers Ingvald and Paul, and his marriage to my great-grandmother in 1914. The second part, Norway to Bella Coola: Konstanse Fyhn, is the story of my great-grandmother’s journey from Norway to Hagensborg in the spring of 1914, including thoughts about some possible reasons for her emigration as a young, single woman. The third part, The Olsens in Bella Coola, covers the years 1915 to 1935, after Ole and Konstanse’s marriage, when they started a family which eventually grew to nine children including my paternal grandmother. This part of the story also includes the harrowing tale of how the Olsens escaped from a destructive flood in October of 1934. The final part of the story, Bella Coola to Vancouver Island, chronicles the Olsens’ move away from the Bella Coola Valley to Sidney on Vancouver Island.
Learning about my heritage has been both enlightening (my dad likes butter on everything because that’s a Norwegian thing!) and frustrating (why can’t I figure out where my great-grandfather was in 1911?!). As I mentioned before, I certainly don’t have all the answers, but learning about my roots has been interesting. If you have ever thought about doing your own genealogical research, I encourage you to start. Ask questions, read books, listen, and learn. More and more records are accessible online, and family history groups are becoming more common. We all have stories to tell, and people want to hear them. No one’s story is perfect, but that shouldn’t stop us from sharing. Family and stories are both ties that bind, and by researching and telling my family’s story, I learned more about not only who my ancestors were, but also about myself.
“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”
George Bernard Shaw
Van Isle History Explorer 