He was a gentleman. He was a man to ride the river with.
He looked like a big man. He was a tough man. Very tough.
He won, I think it was a silver medal, or a bronze medal, at the Olympic Games in 1936.
He could lay down and shoot. And he could bounce up in a handstand straight upright.
The stress and trying to save them people, knowing that there was nine alive when he started
and he could only save five, probably really affected him.
Dad, couldn't you tell me that story again?
Yes, when I was 22 years old I was traveling around Australia.
And for different reasons… On Christmas Day 1988
I ended up at the Salvation Army in Tasmania. In Queenstown, Tasmania.
And on the evening there I got called down to the officer in service. He wanted to speak with me.
And he told me that in the neighbouring village called Strahan
they had a problem with an elderly Swedish man
He had gotten dementia.
And they wanted me to visit him and see if I could understand…
They knew that he wanted something, but they couldn't understand what he said.
He was an older man. Spoke a bit confusing but the story he told was incredible.
He also showed me that he had a medal.
That he had gotten from, as I understood it, the American military.
And I don't know what medal that was, I couldn't understand.
One should document his story somehow, or write about him, an article or so...
I've been thinking of it many times but I never returned to Australia so…
Now I hope that you might do it.
Who was the old man in the caravan?
How had he ended up in the Australian outback and what kind of medal was it really?
The story my dad told, stuck with me.
Several years later I spoke about the man in the caravan to my friend Elin.
Together we started e-mailing campsites in Strahan
and soon we got in touch with several citizens that knew who we searched for.
The man was born in Örebro, 1899. His name was Gustaf Hedin.
Many whom we wanted to speak with didn't use internet.
So we decided to travel to Tasmania and hear their stories personally.
Take one!
We're in Australia!
Strahan is an idyllic village on the west coast with a population around of 650 citizens.
And it was here that Gustaf moved in his sixties.
One of the first people we wanted to speak with was Kerry Hamer.
He had been the chairman of Strahan Rifle Club, were Gus been a member.
Hi! We're looking for Kerry? Kerry?
If you came walking on this road here, he's right at the end of the road.
Okay. Brilliant, thank you very much!
We're looking for Kerry Hamer? You've found him.
Is that you? Yeah.
We just talked to your wife who said we would find you here.
My name is Elin Jonsson. Viktoria Sahl.
We're making a documentary about a Swedish man named Gus Hedin.
Gus Hedin from Sweden.
Who lived here 30 years ago. How long?
Have you got time for us?
No, not really. We could come back.
Tell me what you wanna know.
We'd like to hear your stories about him. Hear some stories about him...
I don't remember what year it was. Probably prior '70, he came to Strahan.
Don't know if that's right or not.
He shot with the Strahan Rifle Club.
I don't know the age, but he was in his nineties when he died, wasn't he?
Well, probably... Up to 85 or so, he'd do a handstand off the mound
He could lay down and shoot and he could bounce up in a handstand, straight upright.
But he was a bit of a comic with his shooting. Because you can use a paste on your bullets
Which is suppose to help the barrel.
But he used to coat his bullets with heaps and heaps of it.
And when he fired a shot off, you couldn't see him for half an hour because of
the powder, the dust and smoke was still about him.
And he built a boat while he was here. As a matter of fact...
Just down behind that white boat there, over against the shore, there are a couple of piles up there.
He built a wharf for himself.
And actually made a track through the bush there.
That's where he used to keep his boat that he built.
But it was not necessarily built out of Huon pine.
It was a very heavy boat and barley floated.
He was a bit of a comical fellow.
He was saying mainly...
"You can beat an egg, but you can't beat a Swede"
He lived down at Meredith Street when he first came to Strahan.
And he built a shack down there.
He later sold it to Tut Ludbey.
Hi, how are you?
Fine, thank you. We're looking for Tut?
He's out there! Out there?
He's either in the sheds or down in the yard, you just have to haunt for him.
Okay, thank you very much!
Excuse me, hello.
Do you know Gus Hedin? That used to live down here?
Yeah, I remember Gus. Gus... I couldn't remember what he's other name was.
What's his other name?
Hedin, it's his last name... Yeah.
He actually built that place that's in my backyard.
Have you got time to tell us about him?
I don't know much about him though. But he came from...
When he came here, he came from the Yukon.
When he came here, he thought it would be as cold as in the Yukon.
So when he built this building, he built it like in the Yukon.
Totally insulated.
He was a good rifle shot.
Did you know he actually won...
He won, I think it was a silver or a bronze medal, at the Olympic Games in 1936.
In Germany yeah. That was when Hitler had a turn out with the dark people.
And I'm pretty sure that was the year he won his medal.
This is the little shack he built. Is this the shack?
I had to put this down to keep the bloody snakes out.
There are snakes around here?
This is Gus's old shack. He's got a fireplace and all, you see.
This is the fireplace?
And if you look up at the roof, you can see how he built it.
This was the cabin Gus built when he settled in Strahan.
The cabin in Tut's backyard is also the first physical evidence telling us that Gus has been here.
I'll tell you what. It's built that strong, you would not believe how strong...
See this mark here?
That's how far down under the ground it was.
My cousin built the ground up around it. That's where the ground was at.
When I lifted it out of the ground, I put things here under it.
The whole building brought the foundations up out of the ground.
It brought three courses of concrete up out of the ground.
I had three building jacks trying to lift nine ton.
And when it finally did come up, it brought the bloody foundation and all.
That's how well it was built.
Had it been me, I'd built it with no foundation. I wouldn't have gotten it to flood.
It would have floated!
Another tip led us to Don and Sandra Grinning, who been living next door to Gus.
And as we got there, Don called his neighbour who also been a member of Strahan Rifle Club.
These two girls are from Sweden.
Hedin from Sweden! This is Brian Cullen.
Sit down here mate and have a talk to the girls.
Well I can't tell them much because my dad knew more about old Gus than I did
Because he used to deal with him at the Rifle Club.
Yeah, but you were in the club when Gus were shooting, weren't you?
Yeah.
I had finished shooting by the time Gus got in there.
Some of the Queenstown team were down and they had a bit of an argument with old Gus.
And he just stood there and jumped up and touched his toes with his hands,
and then he said: "When you can do that, come back and then we'll have an argument!"
He'd competed in gymnastics, hadn't he? Yeah.
But he was certainly a character.
But you knew about that business where he got that citation
for rescuing those people over that lake in Canada?
No, I didn't know about that.
He got a certificate.
There were about five of them. They got out on an icy lake
and it collapsed on them and they went into the lake.
Gus got them out.
He rescued about five of them.
When I was nineteen I decided to join the Royal Swedish Guard in Stockholm.
After six years of service, I got a letter from a friend who prompted me to go to Canada.
One year later I was on my way.
I like to have calm surroundings, I don't like the cities.
So I moved around the countryside n Canada.
Took some extra work and looked for a nice place to settle down at.
One day I got a tip, which led me to Charlie Lake.
600 kilometers west of Edmonton.
There I cleared the ground and built a house.
Later on I got the rights to a big trapline.
Now I could finally start providing as a trapper.
After the trip to Strahan, I went on to Canada together with my friend Matilda.
I had got in touch with Larry Evans who, with his big interest for the town history,
knew exactly who Gustaf Hedin was.
The man that I'm looking for!
Well, hello!
Hi Chris, how are you doing?
I'm on a mission! I got your email.
You did? This morning, yeah.
Good. This is Viktoria, and Matilda. They're from Sweden.
And they're doing a story on Gus Hedin.
Gus? Wow.
Can they have a look at the cabin? Absolutely.
Gustaf moved to Canada 63 years ago.
Despite that, we still met people who remembered him living here.
My dad had a trapline...
over at Stoddart Creek area.
But he used to go to Gus Hedins place
And he had a dog team and he'd stop and visit Gus.
They had a great time. And he always talked about Gus Hedin.
He had a cabin up there, and maybe a trapline too, I dunno.
Larry Evans: He had a trapline.
So they'd talk over their furs and the prices and where they'd send the furs to.
All that stuff.
I was only eight, ten or twelve years old. And dad was trapping then.
But I just remembered Gus Hedin, he always talked about Gus.
I've never met the guy!
Tell me your name first. My name?
Oh boy, it's a big long one. Bill Tompkins.
So how do you know about Gus?
How I know about him? I met him a few times...
Maybe only twice at Powells. I married a Powell.
I married the youngest daughter Audrey. You probably never knew Audrey?
LARRY EVANS: Well I knew of her, but that's all.
So, he was a neighbour of the Powells.
I don't think he lived over a mile away.
I used to fly over his cabin! He would have been close, yes.
The cabin's on the other side of the lake there.
The east side of the lake, that's where he had his cabin.
See, those soldiers that he rescued.
They carved their initials in a tree there.
I know that. Because I can remember that.
It was also said he wrote their names on the back of a cupboard door.
He probably did. He was quite the gentleman.
He was a man to ride the river with as it were. He looked like a big man.
He was a tough man, very tough.
Very athletic!
Do you remember the accident?
I sure do. Yes, you bet I do.
I think that's why he left here. He went a little bit...
I won't say crazy but it really, really affected him. Because...
he could only take two on his boat.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 the USA started building the Alaska Highway.
11 000 soldiers came to north BC and many were stationed in Fort St. John.
Charlie Lake was used to ship material up north.
On the morning of the 14th I got up late as I was very busy the day before.
Whilst having breakfast I saw something on the lake,
getting my glasses I made out a loaded pontoon ferry coming up the Lake,
about 1,5 miles from my residence.
I was watching it and saw it swerve toward the North East.
I went in and finished my breakfast.
Then came out to see what progress it had made, facing the strong steady North wind.
This was about 10 minutes after my first view.
No boat was visible.
I scanned the lake where I had last seen the scow and noticed a bunch of dark objects.
Resembling ducks at that distance.
I again got my glasses and made out men beating the water
and realised the tragedy that had happened.
I ran to my boat and rowed as fast as possible to the scene,
and within 80 rods know for certain that the scow had sunk.
And I could hear the men calling for help.
In a few minutes I arrived on the scene and found nine men afloat.
The first I came to were two men hanging on to a barrel of gas.
One on each side.
One man was inside a life boy.
I told him to hang on as I thought he would be safe.
But he had gone when I returned from the first trip.
The icy water had evidently been too much for him.
Having hauled the first two ashore, I immediately returned for a second trip.
I made for three men hanging on to a plank and pulled two up to the boat.
The water was too rough to load them in and they were so stiff their arms remained rigid.
I wrapped a rope around the wrist of the third, telling him to hang on
and made for shore.
The third man hang on for about fifty yards and then let go.
I couldn't help him further as I had to get the other ashore before they also sunk.
And for so small of a boat the rough water was very dangerous in any case.
I dumped them about fifty yards south of the first two on the west shore
and made a third trip.
I aimed for the center of the two remaining afloat, to be extra sure of getting at least one more.
They were over 100 yards apart.
One sunk before I reached him 75 yards away.
I swerved over the sight but could see nothing of him, and made for the remaining man on the plank.
He was about finished. His eyes glassy and fixed.
I pulled him to the boat, hooked him on and made for shore.
I worked for half an hour to fetch him and then rolled him into my boat
and made for my cabin 1,5 miles away.
I took him in, warmed hime up, gave him tea and did all I possibly could to help him and put him to bed.
Rowing home along the shore I looked to see how the others were faring.
But saw nothing.
I also shouted all the way but could make none hear.
So I concluded they had made it into the bush.
I later found out they had fallen asleep.
Heated by the sun, after the shook of the immersion in the icy cold water.
An hour and a half later they arrived at the cabin, where I was still working on the first arrival.
They had stripped themselves of their soaked clothing and traveled light.
I welcomed them with hot tea in a super-heated cabin.
An hour or two later when we were all recovering from our experiences,
I saw another scow coming up the lake on the east side.
The debris of the wreckage had drifted to the west side.
And the crew had noticed nothing unusual until I signaled them in
and told them of the accident, and they took over.
My boat is very small, with a low freeboard.
I did not dare trying to load the men, rescue alone in very choppy water.
Next time you do this Larry...
Give me an hour notice, I'll make sure the trails cleared.
This is the old cabin.
It wasn't very big.
But this is actually a very typical trappers cabin.
It's actually big for a trappers cabin.
For remote areas it's more like a home, for back in those days...
LARRY EVANS: This is his main cabin
This would have been his primary residence.
Depending on how far out his traplines went, he might have had smaller cabins too.
He had four. Did he?
Four other cabins that went almost all around the lake.
So if he had other cabins they'd be about a quarter of the size of this, to stay overnight.
Just so they don't get caught out, because winter time was when they did most of the trapping.
And he would have done everything by snow shoe or dog sledge.
I believe there was a window over there. On the front, yeah.
We intend on slowly taking up all this...
debris from the old cabin.
And then trying to find anything we can underneath the floorboards.
It may not be anything, but you never know what we might find.
And at some time my wife and I intend to rebuild the cabin.
You do? Yeah, we've always had that in our plans.
It would be amazing to see it standing again...
Just give us your contact information and when we get it done, we'll send you pictures.
Yes, please! Absolutely.
He would have been able to see all away around the lake.
He had a window on that side, there and there. So he would see three sides of the lake.
It was a hard and lonely life in the forrest.
1948 I had had enough of the trapper life and my health was faltering.
I sold my trapline and left with a ship leaving for Sweden.
The plan was to settle down for good.
After six months at sea I put my foot on Swedish ground for the first time in twenty years.
I visited my mother and then took a job at a traveling circus.
But the swedes had turned into a nervous kind of people.
Oppressed by strict laws and high taxes.
Additionally the government did everything to complicate the emigration.
After a year I gave up my life in Sweden
and decided to go to Australia, which I had passed on the way from Canada.
I arrived in at Darwin 1951.
There I made my living from hunting crocodiles and sharks.
But after five years I got tropical ulcers and had to leave for cooler climate.
I was 57 years old and my retirement was getting closer.
I knew Gus. Probably not quite as long as Kevin knew him.
But sometimes I'd visit him and take him some...
If I'd been cooking I'd share some with him.
But he was very independent.
He always said to me 'I don't eat unless I'm hungry!'
And he won a silver medal I think - Gold medal!
It was a gold medal for gymnastics at the Olympic Games.
And I don't know what year that was. Where the Olympic Games in Sweden?
I don't know Colina, it was in... That was a long, long time ago.
No one knew that, because Gus wasn't a person that shared many secrets.
But when you talked to him, he'd open up and tell you a story.
It was funny, because he used to entertain the kids on the bus when he'd go to Queenstown.
Tell them stories of his ill health and what was wrong with him.
There was a lady at the post office. And she was a bossy sort of woman.
And Gus would go in there and he'd get a bit muddled up at posting letters.
And she really started bossing him around. So he started saluting her.
He shifted from his little shack in Meredith Street out to Mrs. Wessleman in Lowana.
And he lived on a little dairy farm there.
So you're doing a thing on old Gus? Yes, we are.
And who knows him?
My dad met him, once. He met him when he was backpacking in -88.
Yeah, would do too, yeah...
That would have been in Peoples Park, wouldn't it? When he had an old caravan in there.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, he left here...
I had a piggery, you see. In Queenstown. I lived in Queenstown.
And I used to come here and buy a few calves of Mrs. Wessleman.
And one day she said, I'll show you this farm.
I said 'Alright then'.
So in about ten years time I came down to buy some calves
And she said to me 'You can buy the farm now'.
I said ' Alright then'.
I got the bank manager and I brought him down, showed him the house and ...
The milking sheds, the other little sheds and a few old milking cows.
And she told us how much it was, so we just wrote a check out for it.
And old Gus, I sort of bought him with the farm.
He was a funny little thing wasn't he?
Because we'd come down here and they said there's an old man that lives in the shed.
There was a little window and we'd try and sneak in there to have a look.
But when he got used to us being here, he was as good as gold.
But he always wore a jacket, and he was this tiny little man...
And in the end he'd get used to us and he'd talk...
We didn't have a clue what he was saying.
But about letters from home and stuff. And I should have hunted them out...
But he used to give me old stamps of his letters.
So at home, in one of the boxes with shit, I've got all these stamps that he'd give us.
It was amazing...
His little grey hair and... yeah, he was sweet.
He used to work for old Mrs. Wessleman here.
Used to cut firewood for the house here...
And milk the cows and do a few jobs around and about the place.
And when we bought the farm we were milking the cows and selling the milk.
We sold the duck eggs and everything like that.
And one morning we got up and wasn't getting any eggs.
I said that's funny, the chicks haven't got off their way.
But old Gus was getting the eggs at the first light of the morning.
So we put a lock on the door.
By Jesus! Didn't he go crook. Because he couldn't get no eggs, you see.
He swore and cursed.
We said 'Look Gus, we've gotta sell the eggs to get a living.
So we'll just give you some?'. So we did that.
You'd never see him during the day.
And in that little hump it was always dark and really warm. It was like...
But Jesus, when you opened that door of that little camp...
The kerosine fumes...
He had a kerosine heater. And the fumes used to come out and hit me in the face.
You'd nearly roll over with a bloody poisoning or something.
How he never died in there has got me beat.
Yeah, he never ever had the door open, ever.
Or only a little bit and we'd have a look and run away.
But once he got used to everyone being around, he'd invite us in.
He used to like me.
He used to say 'John, you are spending too much money on the farm'
I said ' Well Gus, I've gotta paint the sheds, build fences, build gates.
'We're just gonna spend some money to get it right'
But he used to go crook at me.
"Jan" he used to call me.
It's pretty amazing how we started our research, without even knowing Gus name,
To travel over two continents,
and to meet all these people who opened their homes and shared their stories with us.
During his last years Gus suffered from dementia.
He lost his English and started to speak Swedish again.
A few month after my dad met him,
Gus moved in to a caring home where he later passed away, one day in September 1989.
He was then 90 years old.
We had a little funeral at the Anglican church, here in Strahan.
There would've been about 60 people, I reckon.
Men that he'd made friends with and just people who knew Gus,
or associated with him in some way.
But yes, that's all I can remember really.
Just that it was, as it would be, a simple little funeral.
When you bury people like that...
You sort of wonder, how they might be remembered down the years,
someone who's had such an interesting life.
Because you said there was a headstone, didn't you? Yeah.
Gustaf, wasn't it? Yeah...
But that people would look at that and not know that he won
medals from the Royal Humane Society in Canada
or that he won a medal in the Olympic Games as a gymnast.
It's a pity you couldn't put all those things there, it's very interesting history.
And when we were leaving...
He said that he was tired, needed to rest and it was time for us to leave.
And as I left he stood at attention
and waved as I left in the car.
And I still remember this picture of him standing by his caravan in attention.
Gustaf received a medal from the Royal Humane Society of Canada.
And was honored by both Canadian and American military.
A monument was erected at 2008, in memory of the men who drowned
and the five who survived, thanks to Gus.
He was well known in town, people cared about him.
And he was always said to be a swede who came to Australia
And would quite often tell stories of his trapping and his adventures all over the place.
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