 Special Memories |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
Family History
I was born on the coast of British Columbia and brought up in its logging camps and fishing villages.
My father, Ingebrigt Hansen, left his home in the Lofoten Islands, Norway, in 1883, at the age of fourteen, to sail before the mast. He spent twenty years working under sail, from cabin boy to captain. In his quest to see the world he rounded Cape Horn, the southern- most tip of South America, many times.
Vancouver was a frequent port of destination. My father was impressed by the beauty of the surrounding coast with its forests and mountains. It reminded him of his homeland. Near the turn of the century he took a break from the sea and went logging where North Vancouver is today. But the ocean beckoned, and like many true sailors, he returned to the ships for another fifteen years.
During World War I he served in the US Coast Guard, and then returned to the Lofotens where be met and married my mother, Ferdinanda Maria-Louise Mattisen. Back in British Columbia, he took a job in a logging camp at Port Neville. Six years later, in the summer of 1925, my mother and my eldest sister Edith, who was born in Norway, joined my father. They had sailed to Montreal, crossed Canada by train, and taken the Union Steamship to Port Neville.
It was along the coast of British Columbia between 1926 and 1946 that my sisters and brother, Louise, Inamar and Ingolf, and I were born. Ina and Ingolf were born at St. Michaels, the hospital at Rock Bay, and Louise and I were born aboard the Coast Mission ship Columbia, which had a doctor and operating room aboard.
During those years we lived at Port Neville, Hardwicke Island, Sayward, Loughborough Inlet, Owen Bay, and our homestead on northern Quadra Island between Chonat and Poltun bays. The last place we lived before moving to Vancouver was Redonda Bay.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If you have any material to add to this section, please contact the
website manager.
If you are the website manager, you can enter edit mode to upload material by clicking
here. |
|
|
|
Add to favorites 
