Ole Lindberg moved to Canada from Sweden in 1910 and traveled west across Canada by working on the railway. He moved north from Edmonton in search of gold. Ole met Anna in 1921 and spent one winter living with her family. Eventually Ole and Anna married and had four children. Ole did some prospecting with men such as Dick Turner and Albert Faille, however he was primarily a trapper. In the 1940s, Ole began operating a barge to haul freight on the Mackenzie and Liard Rivers. Edwin Lindberg was born on June 16, 1929 near Blackstone. The family was forced to leave the Nahanni region in 1950 because of the tuberculosis epidemic. Ole and one of Edwin's brothers died during the epidemic and Edwin spent eight years in hospital in Edmonton. Following his release from hospital Edwin worked briefly at a power plant in Fort Simpson. He soon left that job and returned to the work of hauling freight on the Mackenzie River. In 1963, Edwin married Susan, a nurse in Fort Simpson and they lived on a tugboat until 1970. Edwin continued to run the freight business until 1978, when he and Susan returned to the Liard River and Nahanni Butte region. They were visited by many people and decided to turn their home into a lodge for tourists.
Gus Kraus was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA on October 28, 1898. In 1916 at the age of 18 he left Chicago and headed north to Alberta with his brother Joe to homestead in the Peace River area. After about ten years Gus travelled further north to the Northwest Territories, where he prospected and trapped in the Nahanni region beginning around 1934.
Mary Kraus (nee Denya) was born in 1912 near Fort Liard. Orphaned at the age of two, she was raised by family for several years until she went to a convent [Fort Simpson or Fort Providence?] for six years. In her earlier years she primarily lived on the land with her family in the Nahanni region. She was fluent in English, French and South Slavey.
Mary and Gus met when a forest fire in the Nahanni region in the summer of 1942 destroyed much of Gus' belongings, while they were able to save Mary's goods on an island on the Liard River. They formed a partnership and were married, eventually adopting a son, Mickey. They resided at Gus' lease at the Liard Hot Springs (now named the Kraus Hot Springs) in winter, where they trapped, and Nahanni Butte where in the summers they cooked for oil exploration crews. Their hospitality was well-known, and they received many visitors, including Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. When the Nahanni National Park was created in 1971, the Krauses resettled at Little Doctor Lake, where they continued to receive many of the tourists and visitors who came to the region until they resettled closer to Nahanni Butte in 1989.
Gus Kraus died at the Fort Simpson hospital on December 1, 1992. Mary Kraus died in Fort Simpson in November 2007.
Frank Conibear was born in Plymouth England on August 23, 1896, but moved to Ontario with his family when he was three. His family settled in Fort Resolution in 1912, becoming the first independent white family to settle in the Northwest Territories. In 1916, the Conibear's relocated to Fort Smith. At this time, he set up his own trapline on the Talston River, which gradually became extended 320 km into the barrenlands. He earned extra income by acting as a guide during the summers for mineral and survey crews. While in Minnesota, in 1923, Frank Conibear met and married Cecelia Powell, returning to Fort Smith to live. In their time, Frank and Cecelia also owned and managed a hotel and cafe. While operating his trapline Frank became concerned with the use of leg-hold traps. He considered the leg-hold trap to be inhumane and following his discharge from the Canadian Army in 1919, he began work on a replacement to the leg-hold trap. By the 1950s, he had perfected his trap and in 1958, a company began mass production of the Conibear trap utilized by most trappers. He died in March, 1988 at the age of 91.