Remember When?

40 YEARS AGO • APRIL 9, 1981

PIONEER MILL OPERATOR SWAN FLODIN PASSES

Swan Flodin, 96 years of age died in Plains March 31. Swan was born August 9, 1884 on a farm near Sundsvaal, Sweden. His mother’s name was Emma Bjorkstedt and his father was Per (Peter) Flodin.

In 1896 the family immigrated to Minnesota. Swan adapted quickly to the new environment. His father farmed in the spring, summer and early fall and worked in the woods during the winter. Swan started working in the woods with his father. Swan was good with horses and he was driving a team and skidding logs before he was 16 years old. It was in the Minnesota logging camps that Swan received his education of logging – especially horse logging.

In 1904, the greener pastures of Saskatchewan, Canada beckoned the family. Swan, his brother Gunder, sister Anna and the grandfather Bjorkstadt went first to a homestead near Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan. Swan kept working with horses as a teamster, freighter, road building, etc. His homesteading days were shared with his brother and his sister.

This triumvirate, after the death of their father from a sudden lightening strike, were a close family group and worked the homestead to support their mother and younger siblings. In 1917 they moved again to Alberta and seven years later Swan moved to British Columbia and Washington. It was no longer horse logging as the big timber required steam power in the woods. Swan became expert with the knowledge of steam boilers and steam engines. This was to serve him well in the small steam powered sawmill he acquired later.

In 1922 Swan gave up ranching entirely. He liked the action, the hard work, the tough physical challenges of big timber logging. After some years of moving through the logging camps of British Columbia and Washington, Swan was a “gyppo” logger for a small sawmill near Granite Falls, Washington.

Horsepower had been replaced with steam and gasoline power. The first clumsy, solid (hard) rubber tired logging trucks were on the road. The first Caterpillar tractors, most of them remnants of WWI were in the woods. Times were changing and Swan was always able to change with them.

In 1929 the small sawmill was unable to pay Swan for the logs that he had delivered to them. He took a share in the sawmill as payment for the logs. The country was on the eve of what was later to be called “The Great Depression.” Swan’s recently acquired partner took all the cash and left unexpectedly for places unknown. This left Swan with one small broken down sawmill and many debts – the Flodin Lumber Co. was underway. In later years, this experience prompted Swan’s advice to a younger associate, “If you want to save yourself much grief, never take a partner and never depend on a lawyer.”

Swan had taken his brother, Walter, to work with him logging before he acquired the sawmill. When the sawmill was acquired, Walter became the manager. Swan and Walter cut their teeth in the sawmill business and sharpened their wits on economic conditions that put many companies in bankrupt. The Great Depression was in full swing and needless to say they “swung” with it. The Flodin Lumber Co. has operated steadily since that day in 1929.

Swan was married to Rena Baker in 1934. They have three children: Mary Lou Hermes, Paradise; Larry, Fairbanks, Alaska and Jerry, Jakarta, Indonesia. Mary Lou teaches in the Plains school, Larry and Jerry operate Northland Wood Products, a sawmill and retail building products center in Fairbanks. Jerry has been on a leave of absence from this business and much of his time has been spent working in the timber industry in Indonesia.

In 1942, the virgin forests of Western Montana seemed to hold promise for the small Flodin Lumber Co. sawmill. Walter had become a partner with Swan and Eric Bryce had come to work with them in 1933. Millar Bryce came along in 1935 as a high school student and returned permanently in 1939. This was the beginning of a life-long association of these four men. Eric became a partner in the company in 1943 and Millar in 1952.

In 1943, the Flodin Lumber Co. mill was moved and erected again near Plains. Milford Meyers was one of the first employees hired in Montana. Milford remains with the company today. In 1945, the mill was moved to its present location, between Plains and Thompson Falls (now Thompson River Lumber). Swan was to remain active in the company for many years. Although he sold his interest in the company to Walter, Eric and Millar some years back, he was unable to leave his work at the sawmill. In recent months he was still spending time at the sawmill on odd jobs, carpentery and repair work. If there was one pleasure Swan had it was “work” – and preferably hard physical work.

Last March, Swan had driven to the sawmill for a brief inspection trip. On the return trip to his home in Plains, his car went off the road. He had finally come to the end of the trail. His daughter, Mary Lou, asked that his friends make this funeral a celebration of life. Here was a life that was well used and well lived. This was the life of a Swedish immigrant, farmer, horse logger, homesteader, teamster, cowboy, cattleman, steam power engineer, west coast logger, lumberman and for the past 50 years a sawmill operator.