THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
Ib Kristensen arrived in Fort Smith on April 1, 1971, and the community has been his home ever since.

Ib Kristensen, a native of Denmark, has lived in Fort Smith for almost 45 years. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

"We fitted into the town very nicely, and that was all we really wanted - a place to be happy in," said Kristensen of himself and his family. "We spent a lot of time in the bush enjoying nature, which is just walking outside the door and you're there. And we got along very well with just about everybody."

This year, the 80-year-old will have spent 45 years in the community.

Kristensen and his late wife, Lillian, arrived in Canada in 1957, a year after marrying in their native Denmark.

They chose to move to Canada to chase career opportunities.

"I didn't feel Denmark had enough space for me, meaning I had completed by apprenticeship as a typographer and I wanted to go a little further, but there were so many obstacles," Kristensen explained.

In Canada, the couple first lived in Vancouver, where their two sons were born.

Kristensen, who couldn't speak any English at first, worked as a bricklayer and later at a publishing house. Eventually, he got a job at McGill University Press in Montreal.

The family found a place to live - a stone house in the Ontario countryside about 80 km from Montreal - while Kristensen spent Monday through Friday in the city.

In a way, this arrangement laid the foundation for the family's move to the North.

"We found that what we had done was really not what we wanted to do, meaning we weren't together enough," said Kristensen. "I was away from the family for too long at a time."

So the family began to think about where they might want to go.

"Now, to go right back to square one, the Arctic always fascinated me as a child. I read everything that I could about the Arctic," Kristensen said, noting he mostly read about Greenland, because of its political and historic connections to Denmark.

At McGill University, he also printed a magazine for Arctic researchers.

"I met a lot of people at that time who were down from the North," he recalled, adding he also talked to a lot of researchers who travelled to the North.

"I got interested in finding out what the Northwest Territories was all about," he noted. "I didn't know much about it, if anything at all."

After looking into the NWT, Kristensen and his family sold their home in Ontario and headed to Fort Smith.

"I thought that the North, and my wife agreed, was kind of an interesting place," he explained. "We (thought we) should maybe just go up there and see what's going on."

As for why they chose Fort Smith, he explained northerners and researchers in Montreal said the town was a beautiful place, and it had schools and a hospital, and was surrounded by nature.

"We never had any regrets of where we ended up," he said. "Of course, it never was in our mind when we left Denmark that we should live in a place like here."

Kristensen said they just kind of fit into the town. In the beginning, he worked at a number of jobs, and later became president of the chamber of commerce, helped create the Muffaloose mascot, and even served on town council.

Meanwhile, his late wife, Lillian, who died in 2005, became well known as a weaver and dressmaker, and founded the Fort Smith Animal Shelter.

However, they became best known in Fort Smith as the owners of North of 60 bookstore.

"We loved it. It was really our life," Kristensen said of the bookstore, which they opened in 1975 and sold in 2005.

Kristensen said he still loves books, speaking as he sits surrounded by books at his home in the Bell Rock area on the outskirts of Fort Smith.

However, he said because of health problems, which he described as post-polio syndrome, he expects this will be his last winter living alone in the house before he moves into the main part of Fort Smith.

As a child, he survived polio but post-polio syndrome has been affecting his bones and muscles for about 10 years, and making it difficult for him to burn wood at his residence.

And Kristensen will be moving into town because of another big step he is about to take in his life in Fort Smith.

In April, he is getting remarried.

His bride-to-be is Pat Raymer, a woman from Toronto who has family in Fort Smith and has been visiting the community for many years.

"And the two of us have kind of found each other, if you like," said Kristensen.

The wedding will take place in Toronto April 21 and the next day the newlyweds will fly off for a cruise in Asia.

Afterwards, they will return to Fort Smith and find a new place to live.

"It is a nice feeling. We get along very well," said Kristensen of his upcoming marriage, adding his children also think it's cool that he is remarrying.

Plus, he noted the people of Fort Smith are also happy for him. "I have had so many congratulations right through the town."