MADAWASKA LAKE, Maine — Brenda Nasberg Jepson’s family has deep roots in both Maine and Sweden, but she might never have explored her ancestral homeland were it not for her career in filmmaking.
Jepson’s latest documentary, currently titled “Swedish Adventure,” is in post-production and will premiere on Maine Public later in 2024, more than 40 years after her first film set in Sweden. This time, her return to the country also marked the first time her husband, Alan Jepson, a New Sweden native, traced his family’s story back home.
For Brenda Jepson, now 67, the new film brings full circle a journey that forged new connections between her and Swedish relatives she never knew existed until she was in her late 20s.
Originally from Augusta, Brenda knew that her great-grandfather Otto Alfred Nasberg immigrated from Sweden to Monson, Maine, in 1891, and found work in the slate mines. While visiting her aunt and uncle in Bangor in 1983, Jepson came across a 1944 postcard from Greta Edman of Ranea, Sweden.
At that time, Edman wanted to know if Otto Alfred Nasberg, her uncle, was still alive. He had long since passed away, but other than the postcard, Jepson knew nothing about Edman.
“I wanted to know if she was still alive,” said Brenda, who now lives at Madawaska Lake with her husband.
Brenda was 27, living in England and working as an editor and photographer for a national British newspaper. She took a boat to Gothenburg in southern Sweden, then drove nearly eight hours to Harnosand to look through historical archives. She found nothing but drove another five hours to a Lutheran church in Ranea, which had records of local families.
By the time she got to Ranea, a tiny village in the northern Swedish province of Norrbotten, near the Arctic Circle, Brenda had driven nearly 800 miles. She felt discouraged after learning that Edman died in the 1960s.
But then Brenda learned of her cousin, Gudrun Gunnarstedt, who lived in Ranea. Gunnarstedt was the great-granddaughter of Otto Alfred Nasberg’s older brother, Abel Viktor Nasberg.
“I called her up and said, ‘Hello, this is Brenda Nasberg. I’m your cousin from America,’” Brenda said. “There was dead silence on the phone. She didn’t know what to think.”
Brenda’s visit with Gudrun, then 48, her daughter Inger Gunnerstedt, 30, and Inger’s daughter, Caisa, 6, and son, Jonas Gunnerstedt, 4, and other relatives became the basis of her first Maine PBS documentary, “The Copper Kettle,” broadcasted in 1984.
The title came from a real copper kettle made by Abel Viktor Nasberg that Gudrun gave to Brenda before she left Sweden, with the family name engraved on the handle.
In 1991, Brenda returned to Sweden with her father Donald Nasberg, then 62, and nephew Wesley Rucker, 12, to visit the relatives she met in “The Copper Kettle.” That film, “Homecoming,” became her third Maine PBS documentary and aired in 1994. Donald Nasberg died in 2013.
Brenda returned to America in 1992 and met her husband, Alan Jepson, while hosting a film screening in New Sweden. The two married in 1994 and started Crown of Maine Productions, which has produced more than 20 history and culture films for Maine Public.
When Alan, 70, was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he and Brenda found a potential treatment center in Finland, located next to Sweden, and decided to visit Brenda’s cousins. Before their trip, the couple realized they had a great opportunity to make another film there.
The Jepsons spent a week in September 2022 meeting relatives for the first time and viewing old family sites. After Alan’s surgery, they decided to try to find the homestead of Alan’s great-grandfather, Mons Jepson, who immigrated in 1871 to the land in Aroostook that became New Sweden.
After getting to Rya, the tiny village in southern Sweden where Mons was from, Brenda and Alan found the abandoned house and land where Mons farmed potatoes. In a clip Brenda shared on YouTube one month later, Alan is seen holding up a huge potato basket he found inside the house.
“I don’t think anyone has ever lived there since 1871,” said Alan, who has been cancer-free since his surgery. “I got emotional when I saw that. I thought, ‘Wow, my great-grandfather came from right here.’”
In total, Brenda and Alan met 10 relatives that they had never known of before, including Brenda’s cousins Lars Berg, a “Swedish cowboy,” and Hans Sjodin, who grew up thinking that he had no relatives left from Ranea. Brenda also introduced Alan to the cousins she met in 1983. Gudran passed away in 2023, after Brenda and Alan visited.
Despite the decades that had passed, Brenda could sense the themes of her original “Copper Kettle” film popping up as she revisited Sweden. The more she discovered about her family, the more she wanted to return and share her findings with the world.
“Traveling like this is a lot more special when you get to meet family at the other end,” Brenda said. “Even though we’ve done all these miles, we’ve by no means exhausted all the relatives we could meet. There are more. We have to find them.”
