Midnight Sun to Southern Cross: Those who go and those who stay

In the tradition of great family migration stories Midnight Sun to Southern Cross continues the saga of the Back brothers flight from Russian occupied Finland to Australia as the nineteenth century turned into the twentieth. From frozen Finland to the lush rainforests of northern New South Wales to the dry and dusty sheep country of western Queensland you follow the highs and lows of their new life under the Southern Cross. It is an extraordinary tale of success failure hard work and dreaming. What drove the wheeler-dealer Wilhelm Anders Back known as WA to become in his time Australias richest Finn? And what stirred his eccentric writerly elder brother Karl Johan KJ pacifist and political dissenter? What of those who stayed behind in Finland and bravely struggled to oust the Russians from their homeland? This book and its predecessor Burn My Letters are timely in the centenary year of Finnish Independence. WAs granddaughter Ruth contrasts his and KJs formative years in Finland with her own upbringing in outback Queensland. Her voyage of discovery and self-discovery uncovers research in Finland and Australia and interweaves her own transformation from shy bush girl to speaker and musician.