Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-04-19
LAPLAND To NORWAY
From the Temperate to the
Arctic Zone.
.SWEDEN'S IRON REGION
RAILROAD BUILDING IN THE
POLAR COUNTRIES.
Cold, Dry, Sparkling Weather in
Christiania and the Breezy.
Sports There.
SWEDEN'S IRON REGION


Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
CHR1STIANIA, Norway, March 4, 1902.
When last 1 journeyed north with my
readers, if remember rightly, we parted
company at Polcirklen, a town, or rather
railway station, which derives its name
from its situation on the arctic circle.
One feels no bump or jar in going from
the temperate to the arctic zone across
this imaginary line; the train stops but
two minutes. and then on and on it speeds
over boundless deserts of snow, through
stunted forests of arctic pines and birches,
until. two hours later, it reaches the -four
ishing fron-mining town of Gellivare, which,
until recently, boosted of being the most
northerly railway terminus in the world,
and also the most northerly town of its
size in the world But it is rapidly losing
both distinctions, for the railroad is being
rapidly pushed north, even in the cold of
an arctic winter, to the open port of XII
runa. on the shores of the Arctic ocean,
and other towns, rivaling Gellivare in size,
are springing up, with all the mushroom
rapidity of American mining camps, on
the line of the railway
From Gellivare one can see the cleo
trio lights of Malmberget. a still more
important town five miles to the north,
lying on the slope of another great iron
mountain This iron region of Sweden is
one of the most wonderful in the world.
Here are great hills a thousand or fifteen
hundred feet high or more of almost pure
iron ore. The ore lies in four great strata,
and If only three inches of this vast strata
were taken off every year a million tons of
iron would be produced, an amount equal
to the whole annual iron produce of
Sweden. This iron store produces nearly
40 per cent of iron ore, and though not of
the same high grade that makes the Swed-
ish ore of the middle provinces of so much
value for fine tools, the edges of pocket
knives. etc, it is yet a vastly valuable, as
1t is an ineXhauStible, deposit.
The fact that these iron mountains are
in the heart of Lapiand, in a latitude where
the sun does not rise for seventeen days
In mfdWinter, or set for seventeen days In
midsummer, has made them hitherto al
most inaccessible and unknown, but now
the scream of the locomotive is heard in
these solitudes, the iron horse goes snort
ing to the very base of the mountains of
iron. steam picks break up the ore steam
shovels load it on the cars, and through
the long arctic winter night, as well as
the long arctic summer day, the work Of
demoliShng these iron mountains goes On
a work which at the present rate, so vast
Is the deposit, will not be accomplished for
many century.
The Bears Paw.
Well may Sweden fear the paw of the
great white bear Russia has already abb
sorbed Finland and blotted it off the map
of the world as distinct principally. Fin
land adjoins Sweden throughout hundreds
of miles of territory, north of the Baltic
sea, and at any time the bear may take it
into his head to shamble over on to Swedish
territory, and IL his paw were planted
thereon it would be Well-nigh impossible to
diSlodge him.
No wonder that Russian dominion is the
nightmare of the Swedes. 1t is enough to
frighten the children to sleep at night and
The next morning after my arrival at
Gellivare l hurried down to the door of the
hotel to have a look at the thermometer
hoping that Providence would favor me
with genuine arctic winter morning, with
the mercury al least fifty degrees below
zero. But, alas, it had grown warmer in the
night, and though it had been nearly twenty
degrees below the night before it was only
about zero when the sun rose, at o'clock.
But what a winter morning! Clear and
crisp and still, a delicious sparkle in the
air, which one can breathe but not de-
scribe; the snow everywhere white and
shoes and under the sleigh runners with
that peculiar sound that 1t only has in high
ATTITUDES.
The sun, though low, was bright, with
even faint suspicion of spring warmth in
his beams, yet not enough to melt or soften
the snow, even ON the sunny side of the
houses.
A kind friend-Mr. c. G. Hoger, the chief
accompany me to a Lapp encampment, if
we could find it, some six miles distant. A
glorious sleigh ride that wasl Stretched
out almost at full length In one of the long
Swedish sleighs, my feet buried in the hay,
covered with abundant rugs, 1ensconced in
fur coat, fur cap and fur-lined boots,
loaned me by my friends accompanied in
another sleigh by the wife of the pastor of
Gellivare and her friend, what could have
been more delightful than that February
ride beyond the arctic circle, over the
frozen lakes and through the woods, in
search of the nomadic Laps.
I was particularly interested In what my
friend had to tell me about railway build
ing in these arctic regions. He had been
railway contractor in Brazil, but he had
come back to his own homeland, Sweden,
and taken the contract for this road in the
polar regions. From the tropics to the arc
tics was certainly violent transition, but
Mr.. Hoger told me that his health had been
far better he had been much more COM
Portable physically and much more pros
porous in his Work-at least financially, by
dealing with an honest government-north
Of the polar circle than south of the equa-
tor.
Obstacles to Overcome.
And yet as can be imagined, there are
stupendous difficulties in building a railway
so near the north pole as this. In winter
the ground freezes to such a depth that to
make any progress in excavation is like
continual rock blasting with dynamite For
more than two weeks the sun does not rise
at all, as l have said, and work must
be done with lanterns or torches But, to
make up for this, there are nearly four
months of perpetual daylight, and then the
contractor works two shifts of men, day
and night if We may call any part of the
twenty-fOur hours night
There are, moreover, vast Swamps and
morasSes in this north land, which in the
summer are impossible until the railroad
bridges them, and ali the provisions for
5000 men and many horses must be brought
north in winter, when the Swamps are
frozen. Sometimes the deep snow renders
the country impossible in winter, and my
friend has occasionally hired of the Laps as
many as 300 head of reindeer, simply to
go ahead of his teams and trample a path
through the snow.
1t is evident that it takes resourceful
man to build a railway in Lapland But
Mr.. Hoger is all this, and his road, clear to
the Arctic ocean is nearing completion, and
will doubtless be accepted by the govern
ment before next September.
AS was natural, such man was an adj
mirer of the United States, of Yankee push
and ingenuity and resourcefulness. Though
he had never been in~the states" he was
one our kinsfolk in temperament and enter
nrise as are So many of the SVedeS