Every week, in thousands of clubs, a flag rises up the pole and a song is sung by heart: "We are the Pathfinders, the servants of the King of kings...". It is probably the first thing a newcomer learns. But ask around who designed that flag and who wrote that song, and the silence is usually total.
The answer fits into a single name, and it is the same for both symbols: the American pastor Henry T. Bergh. He designed the flag in 1948 and composed the song in 1949, in the United States, when the Pathfinder movement had barely gotten off the ground. Decades later, both crossed the equator and became routine in any club in Brazil.
This article tells who Bergh was, how the flag and the song came to be, why his surname appears sometimes as "Berg" and sometimes as "Bergh," and what he did not create — because the triangular emblem belongs to someone else. Data verified on 07/22/2026 from the official sources listed at the end.
So, who was Henry Bergh?
Henry Theodore Bergh was an Adventist pastor from the United States. According to the church's biographical records in North America, he was born on May 24, 1918, in Spokane, in the state of Washington, and died on July 15, 2011, at the age of 93, in California. A whole lifetime, almost a century, and much of it tied to working with young people.
The turning point, for our story, was 1948. That year Bergh took over as director of the Youth Ministry (the former MV department) of the Central California Conference — the same region where, a few years earlier, the first Pathfinder clubs were being tested. He landed in the thick of it: the program existed, but almost everything that seems obvious today was still missing — a manual, leader training, symbols, identity.
It was in that post that Bergh became one of the great organizers of the movement. Adventist sources credit him with the first pamphlet on "how to start a Pathfinder club," the coordinators' program, the first leadership training, and the first Pathfinder Fair. And, of course, the two symbols that give this article its name. That is why he is remembered as one of the pioneers of the Pathfinders — and, when he died in 2011, he was reported as the last of them still alive.
An honest caveat before moving on: the official documents of the South American Division (SAD) confirm that Bergh created the flag and the song, but they do not include his biography. The dates of birth, death, and positions come from the church's archives in North America — which is where Bergh was from. Whenever this text goes into personal detail, it is that source speaking.
How was the Pathfinder flag born (1948)?
The flag came first. The official Pathfinder site is direct: "Pastor Henry Berg, at the time director of the Pathfinder Ministry of the Central California Conference, was the one who designed, in 1948, the official Pathfinder flag." Remember the year — 1948 — because it comes back throughout almost this entire story.
To design is the right word here. Bergh drew the flag, defined the colors and the layout; the one who sewed it, according to the North American records, was Helen Hobbs, fondly remembered as the "Betsy Ross of the Pathfinder flag" — a comparison with the seamstress of the first flag of the United States. One drew it, the other gave it form in cloth.
The detail that many people get backwards is this: the flag did not introduce a new symbol — it housed one that already existed. At its center is the triangular Pathfinder emblem, with the inverted triangle, the shield, the sword, and the colors. That emblem had been created two years earlier, in 1946, by another pastor, John Hancock. Bergh's work was to give that emblem a cloth, a pole, and a place of honor. We will return to that distinction later, because it tends to cause confusion.
In 1950, when the General Conference (the church's world headquarters) formalized the Pathfinder program as an official department, the flag designed by Bergh was adopted along with the uniform and the song. In other words: what began as the initiative of a field in California became the standard for the entire world — including your club.
The song that was born on the shoulder of a road
The story of the song is too good to summarize, so it is worth telling properly. It is May 1949. Bergh was driving alone along a California road, on his way to an appointment — a long trip, more than a hundred kilometers, between San Jose and the Monterey Peninsula. As he drove, he kept thinking about the Pathfinders and how the movement needed a song of its own.
The melody began to take shape in his head right there, at the wheel. Bergh pulled the car over onto the shoulder, took a scrap of paper from inside his own Bible, and began to write the verses: "We are the Pathfinders...". What your club sings today with its eyes closed was scribbled at the side of a highway, by a man who did not even know whether it was any good.
It is important to say what Bergh was and what he was not. He was not a trained musician. He noted the melody as best he could, with little dots on the paper, in the manner of someone who has the music in his head but does not master the theory. According to his own account, he got home and asked his wife to "play that" to see whether it made sense. He used to say, simply, that God gave him a song.
There is a point where the sources diverge, and it is fair to note it. The official SAD site dates the composition to May 1949. Some North American records, however, say the song was sketched as early as 1948 and presented for the first time, in public, at a leaders' convention in Asilomar, near Monterey — some say January 1949, others January 1950. The differences are of months, not of authorship: in every version, the author is the same Henry Bergh, and the period is the turn of 1948 into 1949.
Read alsoC. Lester BondMiriam at the piano — and how the song reached Portuguese
That "scrap of paper with little dots" only became real music because of a second person: Miriam Bergh, Henry's wife and a pianist. That night, when he got home, she sat down at the piano and played the melody from his notes. Wherever Henry had gotten a note's position wrong, the two corrected it together — and, in his words, they "got the melody exactly as it is to this day."
After that, the song still passed through trained ears. It was taken to the music committee of the King's Heralds quartet (linked to the Voice of Prophecy program), which approved the composition without any change. In the United States, the arrangement passed through the hands of musicians from the same circle, who gave the practical verdict: it is a good song, go ahead and publish it.
In the territory of the South American Division, the song was made official in 1952, according to the official site. And, to sing it in Portuguese, one more person was needed: the lyrics that Brazilian clubs use are a translation and adaptation by Isolina Waldvogel. It is worth being clear about this — the author of the song is Bergh; the Portuguese version that is sung is the fruit of her work on his composition.
Notice the pattern of this story: almost nothing was the work of a single person. Bergh designed the flag, Helen Hobbs sewed it; Bergh composed the song, Miriam set it at the piano, and Isolina Waldvogel rendered it into Portuguese. A movement's symbol is born this way, from many hands — but the signature on both, flag and song, is Henry Bergh's.
Is it "Berg" or "Bergh"? And why the dates sometimes don't match
If you have already looked this up, you must have stumbled over the spelling. The official Pathfinder site itself, on the same page, writes "Henry Berg" when speaking of the flag and "Henry Bergh" when speaking of the song. It is not your mistake: it is an inconsistency that has been repeated for decades in club materials.
The full and correct form of the name, in the church's records in North America, is Henry Theodore Bergh, with an "h" at the end. Both spellings point to the same person — there are not two different pastors. If you see "Henry Berg" on a poster at your club, it is not wrong enough to argue over; but, if you can write it correctly, write Bergh.
As for the dates, we already gave a preview: you may see 1948 or 1949 for the song, and two different Januarys for the first presentation. This happens because the process was gradual — the idea matured in late 1948, the verses were written around May 1949, and the public debut came at a leaders' convention shortly after. In this article we follow the official SAD date for the composition (May 1949) and for the making-official (1952), and we flag it when an American source diverges.
The practical rule for not slipping up in a club quiz or on a poster: flag, 1948; song, 1949; making the song official in South America, 1952; author of both, Henry Bergh. With that stored away, you already know more than most.
What Bergh did NOT create (and why that matters)
Here is the most common mistake: attributing the emblem to Bergh — the triangle with the sword and the shield. It was not him. The triangular Pathfinder emblem belongs to John Hancock, who drew it in 1946, two years before the flag. Bergh used that already-finished emblem and placed it at the center of the flag he designed.
Why does separating this matter? Because each symbol carries its own meaning and its own authorship, and mixing everything together impoverishes the story. Flag, emblem, and song did not come from the same pencil or the same year. Look at the timeline:
| Symbol | Author | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Triangular emblem (triangle, shield, sword) | John Hancock | 1946 |
| Official flag | Henry Bergh (sewn by Helen Hobbs) | 1948 |
| Song ("We Are the Pathfinders") | Henry Bergh (piano by Miriam Bergh) | 1949 |
| Portuguese lyrics of the song | Isolina Waldvogel (adaptation) | — |
So, when someone says "Bergh created the Pathfinder symbols," correct them kindly: he created two of them, the flag and the song. The emblem, which is the visual heart of the movement, has another father. Giving each one its due credit is part of truly knowing your own history — and it is the kind of detail that separates those who memorized from those who understood.
The legacy of one of the last pioneers
Henry Bergh lived 93 years and spent much of his life in other roles — he was youth director in more than one field, worked in the administration of Adventist hospitals in California, wrote devotional books for young people. Creating the flag and the song took up a few months of a long career. And yet, it is for those few months that the Pathfinder world knows him.
There is a simple lesson there, and it serves any Pathfinder. Bergh was not a musician. He did not have some grand project in his head. He was a busy leader who, driving alone, cared enough about the movement to stop the car and write. The result is sung today in dozens of countries and in several languages, by people who never heard his name.
When Bergh died, on July 15, 2011, the church bade him farewell as one of the last living pioneers of that first generation who gave shape to the Pathfinders. The flag that rises at your club and the song that opens your Sabbath are his signature — discreet, with no name in sight, but present every week.
The next time your unit sings "ever forward we march along," it is worth a second of memory for the man on the roadside. And, if you would like to know who drew the emblem at the center of that flag, the way is one click away: the story of John Hancock.