1940s Erik Gunnar Erickson in outback Australia

Erik Gunnar arrived in Fremantle (Western Australia) in 1929 as an 18 year old, having travelled via America where he had stayed for a short time. Speaking hardly a word of English, he somehow made his way to the farm to which he had been sent and he spent the next few years there working for what amounted to bed and board. Teaming up with some other young men, he drifted into drilling and eventually made this his career, working in many wild places in Australia and New Guinea.