AEMI

MARIA JARLSDOTTER ENCKELL
put in with the letter R* for village and
or farm/house, then 4 comes up, one of
slight interest for the year 1794: here the
village name was Rytty.
But the search will go on.
Difficulties Abound
In 2012 two known researchers presented
at an international conference a
paper on the Russian-Finnish Whaling
Company, and their Finnish whalers,
wherein it was clearly pointed to the ineptness
and lack of work ethic, among
these Finns and the company they
worked for, and especially that this company
didn’t operate under international
standard rules, which in the case of
these two researchers were in gross error
pointed to the incorrect facts: that these
whalers were salaried at all times out at
sea, and not as common rule demanded
in this particular branch, their earnings
were predetermined according to set percent
of the catch. What these two most
eminent scholars did not know nor had
informed themselves well thereof, was
that the archives at Sjöhistoriska Institutet
vid Åbo Akademi has every conceivable
original document there covering
all aspects of this company’s endeavors
from the company’s birth in 1850 to
the end in 1861, including, ship crew
lists, log-books and letters as well as reports
published in Finland’s newspapers
of that time. And what Sjöhistoriska
Institutet does not have Åbo Regional
Archives has the originals of, as well as
Helsingfors City Archives and the National
Archives of Finland has, as well
as the Enckell Archives at Åbo Akademi
has photo copies of. The only thing anyone
needs to do is to be able to read old
hand written texts in Swedish. And this
75
shouldn’t come as a surprise as besides
Russian the most common language
heard and spoken every day in Russian
America was Swedish and Finnish with
inserts of sporadic German. Confronted
with photocopies of original documents
clearly demonstrated the many errors in
this presentation: these whalers in question,
and the company in question had
in no way earned any of the negativities
this eminent duo had heaped on these
whalers and their valiant endeavors.
Sadly, prior to the delivery of this paper,
this paper had already been published,
which now is spreading an unfortunate
heap of nothing but false information.
Additionally several years back one
American scholar and researcher published
an article on Alaska’s Russian Era
Finnish-born Governor Arvid Adoph
Etholén, a handsome dark-haired man.
No problem with that. However in this
particular article Etholén was presented
in gross error, not as a governor but as
a Russian Alaska Creole, and the life
he had led as such in Alaska. It’s quite
amazing that such an utter mish mash
of a mistaken identity had found such
an eminent publisher in the US.
As to Governor Etholén’s wife, the
highly educated Margaretha Hedwig
Johanna Sundwall, a female intellectual
of rank, who prior to her marriage
had served as a professional educator at
a female school at Helsingfors (Enckell
2003): of her the ever re-occurring old
story, by now expected to be discarded,
tells she was so devoutly religious it was
unthinkable for her to marry Governor
Elect Etholén if, for her 5 years stay in
Russian America, she was not provided
with an Evangelical Lutheran clergyman
and chapel. That such absurd ideas still