This is the true story of the real people who were like Vilhelm Moberg’s Kristina and Karl Oskar. The emigrant Swedes packed food and other necessities in travel chests and sold all other properties. They left their home and family, going on a one-way journey with no expectation of ever returning. After the dangerous Atlantic voyage, the immigrants travelled by overcrowded trains and boats over lakes, plains and rivers to Chisago Lake. Using the skills and strengths from the old country to survive on the frontier, the immigrants started turning the wild woods into their new homes. Life was hard but the settlers now were their own masters. The pioneer families around Chisago Lake strove to establish the society they desired. Most kept their old ways, even after becoming Americans. These early pioneers came to America impoverished, but hopeful. They wanted to become wealthy farmers and own vast acres of land. And most of all, they wanted to have a house their neighbors recognized as the residence of a person of prominence and success. This was something they could not achieve in their native Sweden at that time. This book captures true stories selected from the Swedish book En man som hetade Glader published in Sweden. Even before the 2017 release of the “Glader book, ” many Americans requested an English translation, so we decided to translate various chapters directly related the emigration experience for the Swedes that came to Chisago Lake. We chose chapters about the Smålanders who made a dramatic and life-changing decision to leave their homes and emigrate to the wilds of North America. Hence the subtitle The Emigrants to emphasize how similar these real people to Moberg’s fictional ones. The remaining themes in the Glader book are also interesting and relevant to English readers. Swedish Roots provides the background for rural Smålanders, with insights into their culture and motivation prior to Emigration. A Good Land elucidates the struggles to come for both these newest of Americans, as well as for the oldest of Americans, the Ojibwe and Dakota indigenous peoples who often shared the lands of Minnesota. The coming storm of the Civil War changed all their lives forever. Hopefully we can find a way to make the rest of the Swedish book accessible to an American audience, following in Moberg’s own footsteps. To those of you who read Swedish, En man som hetade Glader is also published in the US.