in Alaska and Siberia Nils and Olaf went to Nome, Alaska, in 1901 to prospect for gold. Finding little success, they signed on to help work a claim on shares. This was a paying proposition but nobody got rich, and Olaf and his father returned to Seattle for the winter. The next spring they returned to Nome and signed on for a prospecting expedition to the Chukchi Peninsula of northeastern Siberia sponsored by the Northeastern Siberian Company, Limited. They spent two summers and one winter in Siberia, mostly on the Arctic coast, but found no exploitable gold and returned to Seattle in the fall of 1903. Returning Northeastern Siberian Company prospectors reported promising signs including colors in every stream panned and graphite deposits. Some still thought exploitable placer gold would eventually be found. However, the Deseret News quoted Nels [sic] and Olaf Swenson as expecting that the wealth would come from [gold-bearing] quartz deposits. Family After returning from Siberia, Swenson worked in Seattle for American Biscuit Company for a year and a half. In May 1904 he married Emma Charlotte Johnson in Seattle. Charlotte, as she preferred to be known, had immigrated from Sweden in 1903. They had at least one son and two daughters. Their son died in Nome in 1910 of diphtheria contracted on board ship from Seattle. Their daughter Marion was born about 1912 and Marjorie (sometimes spelled Marguery or Margery) about 1918. Trading in the Anadyr region of Siberia In 1905, Swenson set out on another prospecting expedition for the Northeastern Siberian Company, this time bringing along his wife and their six-month-old son. In Hanford's account, Swenson was the organizer and by implication the leader of this expedition. Their ship, the gasoline schooner Barbara Hernster, struck a reef near Providence Bay, Siberia, July 28, 1905, and the family reached shore by boat through heavy surf. The ship was subsequently refloated and beached, and Swenson contracted to salvage the cargo in exchange for a share. Subsequently the group and their cargo were picked up and transported to Anadyr, where Swenson set up a trading station selling the salvaged supplies. These found a ready market, since the Russo-Japanese War had disrupted normal supply channels. Swenson is sometimes credited with the first discovery of gold in northeastern Siberia; he credits a group of prospectors headed by Luke Nadeau, part of the same expedition he was on. Swenson was dispatched