Sundsvall is a city of about 60,000 and lies halfway up the east coast of Sweden. Len's grandfather Petrus Näsman came from near here. It was the farthest north we would get on this trip.
The picture above was captured from
the computer in Len's office in Dublin, Ohio. There is a company in Sundsvall
that has a video camera pointed out of their third story window overlooking
the Sundsvall harbor. Using the internet, you can see what it looks like
through that camera at any time. Len had been monitoring the view for about a
year prior to our trip, and had watched the weather and seasons change.
Now we were at this exact spot. As a matter of fact, if you turn to the right and walk a block you will come to the Rästplats where we spent several nights. The city provides 24 hour free parking to visitors, and has a nice information center, all within a few blocks of downtown and the harbor.
The guide books list Sundsvall as an industrial city with major sawmills, lumber factories, and the largest aluminimum factory in europe. This information misled us into thinking that it would be similar to an American industrial city. Not so. It turns out that Sundsvall in one of the cleanist and most charming cities we visited.
Len had made email contact with a
cousin, Annika Lindquist, who works in Sundsvall and lives just across a
bridge on the island of Alnö. Annika is descended from Johannes Rudbeckius,
and has made it her hobby to collect names of his descendents. She now has
over 28,000 names in her computer database.
After calling her, and making an appointment to visit her and her family
later, we set off to explore the home of Len's grandfather Nasman.
Tynderö is a small village or church district on a peninsula a few miles north east of Sundsvall. The church here is typical of many northern Swedish churches in that the bell tower is a separate structure (across the street) from the main church. Like all of the churches we visited, it has been beautifully restored, and the kyrkagård (cemetery) very well kept. Len was able to find the graves of a few relatives here.
The Tynderö area was a fishing
center and is still known for its production of sturströmming (fermented
herring, an acquired taste they say). We drove out to the end of the peninsula
to a place called Skeppshamn. This required navigating the husbil over narrow
blacktop and, finally, dirt roads. The amazing thing is that even here there
is bus service (you have to find a wide area in the road, and hold your
breath, when a bus comes by). Skeppshamn has a very small museum and chapel
overlooking the tiny harbor that opens into the Gulf of Bothnia. It is said
that in the olden colder days, people traveled over the ice from here to
Finland.
We then traveled to Indal, a small town in the beautiful Indalsleden valley. The church at Indal has posted on the wall a list of the preachers who served the church. The list contains two of Len's ancestors who date back to the 1600's. We met the current pastor and his wife who were having coffee in the back yard of their house next to the church. In spite of some language difficulties, we had a pleasant visit. Then, it was back to Sundsvall to meet Annika and her family.
Annika and her husband live on the island of Alnö overlooking the Sundsvall harbor. They have four delightful children, two pre-schoolers and two teenagers.
The family provided us with an excellent barbecue dinner, and we visited late
into the evening. The next day we went with them on a family outing. First we
visited the Selångers church on the outskirts of Sundsvall. This was Annikas
home church and there is a family crest/epitaph on the wall for Erik Teet who
Len and Annika share as a common ancestor.
From there we went back to the
Indalsleden valley and on to Gudmandstjärn, a family farm from the 1800's
that is maintained as a park.
There we had a picnic while listening to some local folk musicians, watched a
lady demonstrate spinning yarn, and saw a water wheel powered sawmill and
shingle making machine in operation.
Annikas' father lives not far from
Gudmandstjärn, so we stopped there for a brief visit. Len was especially
impressed with the wildflowers blooming near their house on a hill overlooking
the Indalsleden valley.
We were treated like close relatives, and had quite a wonderful day.
Back in Sundsvall, we stumbled on
an unusual event. They were trying to set a new Gunnies World Record for the
World's Longest Reindeer Meat Sandwich. 
Streets were blocked off and volunteers set up saw horses and boards to form a
long table.
Bread was laid out, and butter was spread. A slab of reindeer meat and a dollop of potato salad were then rolled up to form a long sandwich that went up the street, curved around in a U shape, and back again. It ended up being 1,400 meters (about seven eights of a mile) long. We heard later that the whole thing was gone in 48 seconds.
We stayed one more night at the
Sundsvall Rästplats before heading back south. We awoke the next morning to
find a light rain and a husbil with a dead battery. Fortunately Len was able
to borrow a battery and jumper cables from a nearby Statol station to get us
on the road again. 
