Five days marking the 2014 edition of Lund Dayz are the latest in a series of 125th anniversary celebrations marking the arrival of two brothers from Sweden. Events start today, Wednesday, August 20 and run through to Sunday, August 24. They will continue in September and October.
Members of Lund Community Society, including Tara Thurber have been planning events for more than a year. “I moved to Lund at the age of four and now live 50 feet away from the place where I was raised.”
Sherry Worthen has lived in Lund for 40 years and worked on the festivities for the 100th anniversary. “I’m thrilled that my son moved back, married a local girl, Amanda Zaikow, and now resides close by with my three grandsons.”
Zaikow, who lived on Texada Island, said, “I moved from the middle of nowhere to the end of the road. Our family finds so many things to do in our community, there is little need to leave.”
Both residents and visitors from near and far will find plenty of activities to keep them busy this week.
While having fun, people can think back to what it was like 125 years ago.
~From files of Powell River News 1989 written for the 100th anniversary.
Lund’s history is really the history of two brothers who, possessed with the true pioneering spirit, established a settlement.
Frederick Gottfrid “Poppa” Thulin was 13 and a farm worker in Sweden when Charles, his elder brother, immigrated to the United States. Charles eventually began hand logging in Pendrell Sound and was joined by Frederick in March 1889.
Oldtimers say the story of the day stated that the brothers emigrated to British Columbia because they heard Canadians did not have to work outside when it rained. Such a condition seemed unbelievable to the brothers who had often endured the cold autumn rains while working on the farm in Sweden.
Frederick took the trip up from Vancouver on a side-wheeler tug, the Mermaid, which towed a scow load of slab fuel. Met by his brother, the pair ogged for the rest of the year, skidding their timber into the salt water, where it was boomed, towed to Vancouver and sold at auction.
In the winter of 1889, the pair decided to settle in the sheltered cove they subsequently named Lund. They bought a homestead from Charles Sisil and Acil Sisil, a preemption of 160 acres. They settled on the name Lund because it was easy to spell and easy to remember. Another story says “Lund” translates to “forest grove” in Swedish, in which case the settlement was well named.
The brothers’ first task was to build a wharf. There was a certain amount of traffic through the area even then. Fishermen plied the waters north and south of Lund and tugs stopped in every three or four weeks to leave mail and supplies for loggers coming down from the bush. Until the wharf was built tugs anchored at a boomstick from which supplies were rowed to shore.
The location of the original wharf was on the southeast side of the bay and opposite the government wharf. The industrious brothers piped water from the creek to supply the tugs. As soon as that was done, they cleared and drained the meadows around, making them suitable for farming.
Timbers for the wharf were 20 metres high for the front end, tapering to smaller logs at the back. The brothers worked long hours, cutting and installing logs during the day, weighing them down with rock during low tides at night.
Other timbers the brothers felled were cut into cordwood and hauled to the wharf by a team of oxen, where they were sold to the tugs for firewood. For a breathing spell they went dog fishing. The only saleable part of the dogfish was the liver, from which a vitamin-packed oil was made. The oil sold for 25 cents a gallon.
Lund received mail from Vancouver every three or four weeks, carried by tugs from the Hastings Mill. In 1902 Lund got a post office, one of only two north of Vancouver. The other was at Gibson’s Landing on the lower Sunshine Coast.
The brothers made the long trip to Vancouver by rowboat, and with a small sail they could make the 85 nautical mile run in three or four days. As up-coast business increased, a passenger and mail boat service started with the Comox of the USS Company, Captain Newcomb. Lund was coming into its own; the vision of the two founders was materializing.
Next, the Thulins built a small store, stocking it with staples and adding to the inventory as business increased.
In 1894 Lund gained another first, with the first hotel licence issued north of Vancouver. Five years had past since they settled in Lund, and the brothers had built a home, wharf, store and hotel. They had farmland and a good wood business, with a boat and fishing on the side.
The year the brothers received the hotel licence, they built an open-air pavilion. The next year a new and bigger hotel was found necessary, so the brothers built it, with room for the post office and the store.
Another first for the brothers was the building of their first steamboat, City of Lund.
“Poppa” Thulin died in 1935, but he was able to revisit his homeland with his wife in 1914. Management of the Lund properties passed to his sons Holger and Gerald, who was born in the hotel built by his father.
At that time there was still no road between Lund and Powell River but boat traffic was plentiful. Long before Gerald’s time there was heavy tourist boast traffic into Lund, the hotel was filled in the summer with visitors who came for the fishing or the scenic beauty, or both. Two big dining rooms and a big kitchen kept an equally big staff busy.
Gerald took two years of early schooling in Lund before moving to Vancouver to complete his education. He took over the store business and his brother Holger managed the hotel until his death in 1954. In 1957 the store on the wharf burned down. But these setbacks were never known to stop the Thulins.
Holger’s wife Grace, along with her two sons, remained in Lund after his death and worked in the family business until it was sold in 1962. She celebrated her 100th birthday at the hotel in 2004.
Three generations of descendants of the Thulin brothers still live in Powell River today.
Bit by bit the small community of Lund changed from a logging and fishing centre to a tourist destination.
Visitors who arrive in Lund today will note the monument advertising the beginning of Highway 101, which ends in Chile.
For complete details on Lund Dayz, readers can go to www.lundbc.ca/125anniversary.
.jpg;w=120;h=80;mode=crop)