In 1870, Swedish settlers begin to arrive in northern Maine, lured there by state officials concerned about the flight of potato farmers to the midwest. Today, some of the decendants of those settlers carry on the cultural traditions of their ancestors, including the Swedish language. A new documentary, "Old Maine Swedish Farms," chronicles their stories, and captures their very old form of Swedish. Keith Shortall spoke recently with two of the films creators.

We often hear about how many young people choose to leave Maine to look for better jobs. It's not a new phenomenon. After the Civil War, state officials became concerned when potato farmers were leaving northern Maine and heading to farmlands in the Midwest.

"And so the state of Maine thought, 'Well who can we possibly get who knows how to raise potatoes, but who also would tolerate the cold winters,'" says documentary filmmaker Brenda Nasberg Jepson. Jepson says the state authorized a representative to entice families from Scandinavia to come to northern Maine.

"So William Widgery Thomas, who had been amabassador to Sweden under Abraham Lincoln, went to Sweden, he was sponsored by the state of Maine by an act of the Legislature to go to Sweden and round up Swedes, and so he did--he rounded them up," she says. "Fifty-one came in the first batch, and then they came in waves and my husband's family came in the second wave in 1871.

Jepson's new film "Old Maine Swedish Farms" tells the story of the Swedish colony, which is slowly losing its language. Dan Olsen is a former lecturer in Norwegian and Swedish at the University of Chicago, who conducted the interviews in the film and serves as narrator. He now lives in New Sweden, and knows the subjects, most of whom, he says, learned Swedish at home on the farm.

"They had to speak English in school, speaking Swedish in the schools was not allowed," Olsen says. "But in the homes and on the farms they spoke Swedish, and that's been the slant of this film, was to ask people questions about the farm because those were the types of things they were able to discuss relatively easily--they knew those words."

Here Olsen interviews Louis Peterson, who runs a sawmill, and owns farms in Woodland and nearby Stockholm. "Summers we hayed, or took care of potatoes or fished all we could, and picked berries--and fished again. We liked to fish!"

Olsen: "How did you learn Swedish?"

Peterson: "My mother and father. That was all they spoke at home, so I didn't learn English until I started school. Now I've forgotten some, but it's fun to speak Swedish when I meet someone who can, like you."

Olsen: "Did you speak Swedish as school?"

Peterson: "No, there were not many who could speak Swedish. I only speak it occasionally now."

"Well, it really was quite amazing to be able to hear this very old Swedish," I was very aware when I was even listening to them that it's disappearing but it's also a very old form of Swedish," says producer Brenda Nasberg Jepson, who is from Augusta, but now lives in Stockholm, Maine.

One of the subjects in the film, Floyd Jepson, is her father in law, who has since died. "It certainly was bittersweet because you're hearing these people's voices and you're thinking my gosh, these are the last of the folks who really learned Swedish at home," she says. "They're native Swedish speakers and once they're gone, we've really lost their voices, so it was quite an experience to hear them--and in fact, two of them have passed away since the film was made, so I'm even more aware of it now."

The other subject who has died since the film was shot is Edmond Anderson, who is interviewed here with his wife, Eloise.

Edmond Anderson: "My mother spoke more English than Swedish, but she was good at Swedish, too."

Eloise Anderson: "I didn't speak much Swedish, my grandfather used to speak to us and I would answer him in English. But we had a Sunday School there in Jemtland "YEMP-land", and there we read the bible in Swedish. Brother Berglind was our teacher and we read in Swedish.

Interviewer: "How many year have you been married? "

Eloise Anderson: "Fifty-six years."

Interviewer: "Was it easy?"

Eloise Anderson: "Of course! Yes."

"Old Maine Swedish Farms" is produced by Crown of Maine Productions, and was funded in part by the University of Maine Cultural Heritage Grants program.