Arctic Adventure

My wife, my son, and I just returned from a quick trip to Finland with a side trip to Estonia. Great fun through the University of Washington's Alumni Tours and AHI Travel.

Saarinen's Helsinki Train Station Tower

Helsinki's new Central Library Exterior

Helsinki's new Central Library Interior

Tallinn, Estonia Old Town

Our cabin at Northern Lights Village in Saariselka, Finland

Northern Lights (We were exceptionally lucky to experience this on our fist night in Saariselka)

Us with Reindeer

Never too old to try something new

Scott Rohrer, Sailor and Friend

Recently I lost a cherished friend and colleague, Scott Rohrer. He was a victim of a hit and run accident in Everett, Washington, while he was out on a morning walk on October 9, 2023.

I initially met Scott when I learned of an effort to return the historic R-Class racing sloop, PIRATE, to the Northwest from California where it sat languishing at a dock. Together we formed a syndicate and brought the vessel to Seattle where a crew of Scott's volunteers from the Center for Wooden Boats restored her to past glory over several years. Scott and I teamed up to put PIRATE on the National Register of Historic Places. Scott ran a program focusing on PIRATE at the Center for several years until health issues prevented his active participation. http://rboat.org/

PIRATE

Scott was a well respected competition sailor and an eminent maritime historian. He knew more about the rumrunners that were built on Lake Union than anyone and for several years wrote a vessel history column for the Seattle Yacht Club. He was also a member of the Royal Northern & Clyde Yacht Club after sailing 8s in the United Kingdom with Sir Eric Maxwell and in Sweden on WANDA.

I hope we get a chance to raise a glass of Scotch in Scott's honor soon.

Scott Rohrer (1945-2023)

Family History During Covid

When Covid 19 hit in 2020, I was forced to put aside my research project on Seattle Architect Ellsworth Storey due to the lack of access to the Storey archives at the University of Washington. So, when looking for another project to occupy my time during lockdown I returned to a project that I had started many years ago regarding transcribing my great grandmother Anna Anderson Johnson's diary. Anna was my mother's father's mother. She immigrated from Sweden with her husband Peder Johnson in the early years of the Twentieth Century having been recruited by the Church of Latter- Day Saints (Mormon). Her diary tells the story of trying to eke out a living on various farms in Utah and eventually in Naf, Idaho, on a god-forsaken homestead. I also had the memoirs of her son, my great uncle Bert, so I added that and wrote some background and added a number of family photos. I finished that project in 2023, and published the result as Hardscrabble.

As Hardscrabble covered much of the early family history on my mother's side, I thought it would be only fair to tell the story of my father's family, focusing on the grandparent's Erick and Ella Johnson who also emigrated from Sweden in the early 1900s. Since I didn't have a memoir of diary to work with, I had the do a bit of research and rely on my memories of my father's parents. I especially enjoyed writing about the wonderful Christmas Eves I spent as a child at their small north Seattle house that had been imported from Scandinavia in the 1950s. I finished the small book on my 75th birthday and published it in November of 2024—Erick & Ella Komma Till Amerika.