Hello from Pori, Finland! I'm sending a little story from history relating to Paul Lindwall, an uncle of mine who lived on Puget Island. This story is published in the newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet, which is the main publication for Swedish speaking people in Finland. This story is a part of an article which consists of the life of Finnish people who have found a new life in Oregon and Washington.

This article is written by a reporter Ragnar ölander of the respective newspaper. The article was published Feb. 2, 1946, very shortly after the war ended and life looked more bright.

I found this story when going through old family papers, the clip was missing the publishing date and caused a bit of work to find out the date. I have translated the story from Swedish to English. You are free to correct it into more correct English.

Paul W. Sivakka

Pori, Finland

Three hay harvests during a year farmer Paul Lindwall, born in Pori, gets in one year from his lot, which is not large by Finnish standards, only 10 hectares.

The soil is slurry of the river and is too rich for corn cultivation, he thinks. Corn shoots as a shot and gives a sparse return. Animal husbandry gives the best results. By his 16 cows, he has become a well-to-do man, and he blesses the modern technique. In his youth, he was a drummer in the orchestra of Pori, later he came over here and tried this and that, mainly fishing, and at the end, stayed in peace on Puget Island. If you follow him into his house--a cottage you cannot call it--you will see how a mechanized farmer's house looks like when it is as its best over here. Warm and cold water tap over the stainless sink, electric stove, fully automatic oil fired heat furnace--push a button on the wall and the hot air streams into the room through an inner valve. In the barn, the electricity takes care of the milking.

Lindwall takes his new car, a fine car, from the garage and drives me around on the island and tells about his fate during the tour. He lights up in satisfaction when he speaks how the virgin forest has become fields and meadow, and about the annual incomes of agriculture and the possibilities of America.

By the shore of the river, one glimpses beaver ponds, and beaver teeth have felled many tree trunks. From the forest comes a deer down to the river to drink--it is the virgin forest and wilderness around.

Also fishing ranks among the main industries in Oregon and Washington. We became acquainted with fishing in Astoria in the mouth of the powerful river. Here we encounter a numerous Finnish colony. Of the 12,000 inhabitants in this little town, 3,000 are Finns and about 1500 Norwegians and 500 Swedes, in other words, a half is Scandinavians with an element of Finnish domination. Almost all have their income from the sea, some literally as fishermen and others from the thriving canned food industry.

We walk through the packing halls where the cans are on a conveyor belt filled with lovely salmon or tuna, soldered and labeled at the same pace. Case by case, they are stacked in the warehouse to be soon distributed all over in the American continent. So far there has not been any lack of demand, we are told, and the assets of fish are unrestricted in Pacific Ocean. The whole fishing fleet by Columbia River mouth is about 2,000 fishing boats of which a part are employed by salmon fishing inside the mouth and the other part of tuna fishing on the sea.

Parhain terveisin (Best wishes)