| Show ewegen M N 4 41 ic this swedish housewife bakes only four times a year prepared by national geographic society waa washington hington D C service HIS year all sweden is celebrating THIS Tex with memorial rites and exhibits hibits the three hundredth anniversary of the death in battie of gustavus adolphus the swedish hero king many are the ways of celebrating for as tile the traveler moves about sweden e ty by canoe coast steamer river barge motor car railway or airplane lie he Is confronted with many peoples with customs and dialects unalike the differences however fade in retrospect and tile the outstanding impression one gets of sweden today Is of a closely knit and homogeneous group in its population an unusually pure nordic type predominates tall stature ioda ong face light complexion golden lair hair and blue eyes the blond coloring gives the streets of stockholm a quality of lightness in contrast paris seems somewhat somber soinier and dark the one exception to the ity ty of the population of sweden is the lapp some seven thousand of them a i race apart dwell in the arctic wastes of the far north in some vague past their racial memory Is short chort they wandered in from the east possibly from mongolia they have not stopped to carve their names on tile the eternal hills they are leaf deaf to the tread of the centuries for them the music of life comes only through the singing of the wind neove their nomad tents of bark and through the velvety tramp of fleet vagrant reindeer hoof As protected wards of the swedish state members of tills this alien race roam securely over the find snow capped fields of the north for more than a century sweden has not been embroiled in war at no time in its history has a conquering foe invaded its territory and left the customary aftermath of mixture of blood during the past six years sweden has entered more actively upon its humanitarian purpose of trying to outlaw war altogether sweden has no colonies colon leq and so avoids entangling alliances its zest for empire and empire building was worked off in the vash lush of youth in the viking days brave adventurers went west and traces of their wanderings still exist on the coasts of england and france iceland and greenland but in many of the lands they touched they left no enduring record of occupancy i Sw edens intervention in the thirty years war saved the cause of 0 religious liberty for europe then came the brilliantly tragic rellan of charles XII with hla his death in 1718 ended his gallant defense as he alleged of western ideals of statecraft against the threat of muscovite anarchy sweden had lost its baltic possessions its prestige as a world power diminished the energy expended on extending empire has since been directed toward the more peaceful pursuits of developing internal resources no immigrants there sweden has no immigration problem about 99 per cent of its six millions n 2 being native born not immigration g but emigration once threatened the national welfare before american immigration quotas were known nearly a fifth of Sw edens population was represented in the united states love of country dominates the swedish people their songs reveal a passionate love for the beauty of tile the land which has been an unending source of inspiration to swedish poets the swedes reputation for melancholy may be attributed to his susceptibility to the vagaries of the weather lie ile is gloomy at the very thought of autumn harbinger of the dark winter months all the russet gorgeousness of september and october her is wasted on him lie he Is quick to lament the briefness of the season of light remind him of some event in the he past and he Is likely to say reflect ively dively oh yes that was the year the summer fell on ft a tuesday in that respect he be Is the arch pessimist stockholm to be sure Is in very nearly the same latitude as the southern tip of greenland this means that approximately two thirds of the country lies in latitudes generally considered unfavorable to habitation and growth hut but the climate of the scandinavian din avian peninsula with its jagged coast line sweeping down majestically y from polar regions into tile north and sells seas la Is tempered by tile the warm a atlantic drift which follows tile the western const coast of norway and dips also into the rack thore alip e Is a joy ous glamour about the way spring and summer come wath a rush almost overnight in the south one sees tho the beech forests turn into low ranges of jade the islands the transatlantic visitor sees first as he nears the swedish coast are those that encircle the harbor of Go gothenburg gothenberg Got henburg chief shipping center and commercial port of the country for the usual approach to sweden Is by the lonely passage that rounds the bleak northern tip of scotland and then threads down among the islands in the mattegat Katte gat Go find and stockholm are linked by a road of water the goto gota canal this connects the north and baltic seas and the large inland lakes van ern the largest lake in europe excluding ladoga cadoga and onega in finland and russia and batern and malaren Mn laren the series of locks that provide tor for the varying levels in the route the highest point Is SOS feet above the baltic were an engineering triumph when lien c constructed nearly a century ago through gota canal north of this belt of water Is another lake district including the fry ken lakes of lake alijan in dalecarlia Dale carlla carlia and dellen in liaising land along the eastern coast farther north come the extremes of summer and winter where the arctic circle cuts through the fields along the norwegian boundary the sun Is visible for 1 21 2 1 hours of the day for seven weeks to in june and july F from rom any of the accessible mountain peaks the midnight sun run Is a breathtaking breath taking spectacle of magnificence with a few outstanding exceptions there are no striking extremes of wealth and poverty in sweden there are no slums in Joa koping tor for la ia stance though it Is the home of the world famous safety match one of the most important manufactures of the country eskilstuna EskIl stuna steel an equally familiar trademark trade mark has not produced a swedish pittsburgh of vicious volumes of smoke the miners at kirana kiruna north of the arctic circle live in a model community of neat modern houses and ra fa lun center of the Berg mining interests suggests neither luxury nor squalor although one corporation generally said to be the oldest in the world has held continuous possession since 1284 of the great mine stora with its vast underground pit pil nearly all live comfortably the ordinary coin comforts forts of life are within the reach of the majority with a highly developed telephone system business and social matters are handled largely over the wire at tho the hint of a delay when a call Is made the swedish operator answers not just a minute but in the wink of an eye I 1 and site she means literally and eap exp just that thal the main railway lines like the telephone are state owned private lines supplement rather than rival this service which includes about a third of the total railway mileage of the country sweden has a more extensively developed railway system in IA proportion to population than any other european country third class Is cheap and clean second far out ranks the ordinary european second and first offers luxurious means of travel the electrified railway that Is farthest north in the world runs from bodon below the arctic circle to nar vik Nor ways always ice fee free port through which much of Sw edens iron ore Is shipped the electrical current Is supplied front from porjus horjus a modern industrial du town that has bris sprung up in the wilderness of 25 years ago the me machine chine room at porjus horjus Is sunk stink into a blasted mountain wall nt at a depth of feet a precaution that gives ii a hint of the alie low temperatures of the arctic winter electricity derived derive from waterfalls and rivers Is being substituted by modern industry as fuel that in time will supplant the black coal which sweden lacks black binck coal heads the list of imports and leeps keeps the balance of trade unfavorable to sweden but white coal Is beginning to take its place from tho the depths of the forests of sweden they cover three fifths of its land area come tile the commodities that head tile the exports wood pulp planed and it boards paper beams spas spars and bo box boards provide n nearly eaily half of the nat nations lons annual rey revenues aniles from exports |
