Welcome to Karsten Sortland's Homepage

  Karsten passed away in late 2002 at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
  His funeral was held at Turramurra Uniting Church.

  Vale Karsten Johan Sortland - 24/03/1926 to 11/11/2002

I was born in 1926 in Sortland, a hamlet near Leknes on Vestvågøy, one of the Lofoten Islands, off the coast of northern Norway.

Shortly after World War II I did National Service in the Norwegian Navy and then joined the Norwegian Merchant Navy as a bosen. I travelled to many countries throughout Europe, North and South America, South East Asia and Australia.

I worked in a sawmill in Oregean for a short while.

I lived in Perth, Western Australia for some time where I worked on the construction of the Narrows Bridge, the Kwinana oil refinery and at Maralinga (before they let the bombs off!)

I settled in Pennant Hills a northern suburb of Sydney around 1960.

I have four adult children - Julian, Randi, Trud-i and Jeremy. You can see a family portrait on my wife Daralyn's homepage.

See photos of my Mother, grandparents and some uncles and aunts.

I have written a book called "Jacob's Trouble plus the Church's Trouble", which has recently been published by Minerva Press.