Jim's great grandparents on his father's side were Reindeer Herders in Finland. These people are known as the Nomadic Indigenous Peoples of Northern Europe or the Saami. These grandparents lived at a time when other Europeans moved in and took their lands, took their children and put them in Industrial schools  and  persecuted many of the Saami.  Jim's great grandparents and grandparents escaped this persecution and immigrated to the Moose Lake area of Minnesota, USA. After Jim's grandparents married each other in Moose Lake Minnesota they moved to Canada and eventually settled in the Central Alberta area Sixty five miles west of Red Deer in the 1930's. That same farm still belongs to the Mandelin family today.