Carl Sidoff Gustafson

Carl Sidoff Gustafson was born in Hinneryd, Småland on August 22, 1874. His father was a farmer and cattle trader. Carl stayed on the farm until he was 18 years old, when he emigrated to America.

He arrived in Chicago in March 1893 and immediately secured work at the world exhibition buildings. Carl stayed in Chicago for one year. He then moved on to Minneapolis and got work in a store. He enrolled in the “Minneapolis University of Finance and Commerce” and studied there for two years. After graduation, Carl got a position with a wholesale company as a bookkeeper and stayed there until 1898, when he came down with “Gold Fever”!

Carl left Minneapolis with four friends, with Dawson in Canada as their destination. They first traveled to Edmonton, Alberta, and from there they wanted to go to the gold fields. They acquired horses and sleighs in Edmonton to transport the necessities for the journey and then left on March 1 along the Pembina River, past Lesser Slave Lake to Peace River Landing.

At Peace River, it became impossible to continue with sleighs, so they built boats and went up the Peace River to its head. When they arrived at the junction of the Peace River and the Liard River, they found the snow was so deep and soft that it was impossible to continue. Carl and his friends stayed in this vicinity until February 1899, almost a year after leaving Minneapolis.

They then continued with the few supplies they had left. All the horses had died, so they pulled their supplies on toboggans themselves until they got to the Liard River, where they built more boats in order to continue. When they reached the mountains, they found that it was impossible to climb up and over them. They finally decided to give up the whole trip to the gold fields and returned to Dease Lake, Telegraph Creek, and down the Stikine River to Fort Wrangel. There, they found a steamship about to leave for Vancouver.

In Vancouver, Carl found work with the CPR, but after some time he went North again. Carl stayed in Whitehorse and built a couple of houses; he also built a boat and traveled down the Yukon River to Dawson. In Dawson, Carl started a building business and also built a dredger, which was the first one in Dawson.

Eventually, Carl returned to Vancouver and started to buy building lots along English Bay, building houses on the lots. By 1910, he had built 400 houses, most of them in the West End! From 1910 onward, Carl built mainly commercial buildings and hotels in downtown Vancouver and also became the owner of some of those buildings.

Carl Gustafson married Hanna Johnson on June 9, 1905. Hanna was born in Västervik, Småland on May 7, 1876. She came to New Westminster with her parents in 1891. Carl and Hanna had five children, though one boy died at the age of two.

Carl died in St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver in 1933 after an appendix operation. At the time of his death, the family lived on West 34th Ave in Vancouver.