Fonds 243 - Sven Johansson fonds

Sven Borje Johansson was born in Saffle Sweden on August 29,1924. He served in the neutral Swedish army in WWII. After the war he moved to Lappland in northern Sweden, spending 12 years working with Laplanders managing reindeer herds. During that time he married and had a daughter.

In 1962, he immigrated with his family to Canada and worked from 1963 to 1968 as the manager of the Reindeer Station, for the Canadian Reindeer Project. His wife and daughter returned to Sweden and they divorced. In December 1967 he remarried to Norma Buchanan. They built a cabin named Arctic Mountain House to serve as a big game hunting lodge, and Johansson earned a pilot's license. Between 1967 and 1972, he spent summers chartering out his boat "North Star" for work in the Beaufort area and winters trapping near Arctic Red River. He also worked for the Geological Survey of Canada to study the Polar Continental Shelf.

In 1973 the family sailed from Inuvik bound for Vancouver. A year later, delayed by weather they arrived. In 1982 Johansson outfitted the cutter Belvedere for John Bockstoce for northern expeditions. In 1988 after several attempts Sven captained the Belvedere as the first private yacht to complete the Northwest Passage from west to east.

Sven Johansson was also an accomplished choreographer and theatrical inventor. He incorporated the Discovery Dance Society in Victoria in 1989 and won several awards nationally and internationally. Sven Johansson was invested as a member of the Order of Canada in 1994 and the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002. He died in Victoria on October 17, 2019.