Gustaf Nordenskiöld

Gustaf Nordenskiöld (29 June 1868 – June 6, 1895), Swedish scholar of Finnish-Swedish descent, a member of the Nordenskiöld family of scientists and the eldest son of polar explorer Baron Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld and his equally aristocratic wife, Anna Maria Mannerheim. He was the first to study scientifically the ancient Pueblo ruins in Mesa Verde.

Nordenskiöld was featured on the Ken Burns PBS series The National Parks: America's Best Idea.

Nordenskiöld completed school at Beskowska skolan in Stockholm and studied at Uppsala University and the new , graduating with a B.A. from Uppsala in 1889. The next year (1890) he traveled to Svalbard together with J. A. Björling and A. Klinckowström, bringing a collection of plant fossils back to the Swedish Museum of Natural History. After his return, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis and went to Berlin for treatment.

Nordenskiöld's North American segment of a world tour began when he landed in New York on 27 May 1891 aboard the SS Waesland of the Red Star Line. (Letters Letter No. 2, The Letters of Gustaf Nordenskiöld Mesa Verde 1991). In Letter No. 9 from Charleston, NC he tells his father to address letters to the Swedish Consulate in San Francisco and on 27 June 1891 he wrote to his mother from Denver, CO and included a request that further letters be addressed to the Swedish Consulate, Yokohama, Japan so the world tour was still on his mind. Three days later on 30 June 1891, also from Denver, he tells his father that tomorrow he was going to Durango, CO and the "Mancos Valley" where there are a "number of cliff dwellings".

This break in the intinerary of his world tour was permanent.

When Nordenskiöld arrived in Durango he made arrangements to stay with Cattle rancher Richard Wetherill at the Alamo Ranch in Mancos, CO. This is confirmed in a 2 July 1893 letter to his father in which he requests his photographic equipment, consisting of camera, tripod, lens, cassette for photographic plates, shutter, dark cloth, and "as well as my barometer". (Letters Letter No. 15, The Letters of Gustaf Nordenskiöld Mesa Verde 1991.) He also says in the same letter that his father should answer by telegram whether he should remain where he is.

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