Nord

North of Nälden

A farmyard at Västerkälen in Jämtland: dark log houses with white-trimmed doors and windows around a yard, and a woman in white standing at the right.
“Grandma Nord’s old home”: Västerkälen, the farm of Brita’s brother Jonas Petter, with her sister Anna in white. Family collection.

Andrew Crenshaw

Nord follows Nils Zakrisson and Brita Nilsdotter from Jämtland, in the north of Sweden, to a homestead in Saskatchewan, a coal seam near Opheim, Montana, and a farm in the hills above Addy, Washington. There Nils vanished, and Brita, now Bertha, raised their two sons alone. It is built on original records, with family stories credited to the people who told them.

The book is free to read and download. Printed copies are sold at cost.

How to open the book on your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle

This is the first edition, November 2026. Updates and corrections

Inside the book

The book opens in Jämtland, where Nils and Brita met and married. Two chapters go back through their families to the 1760s. Then it follows them west, to Saskatchewan, Montana and Washington, and ends with the family’s return to Jämtland in 1990.

See every chapter

  1. Nordannälden and Västerkälen1896–1905
  2. Brita’s family1765–1921
  3. Nils’s family1761–1913
  4. Deckerville1905–1913
  5. Roanwood1913–1916
  6. Addy1916–1920
  7. Bertha and her sons1920–1982
  8. The visit1990

After the book is out

The printed book stays fixed until the next edition. This site keeps going.