Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Geographical Situation, by Andr. M. Hansen
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been, that the greater part of it, the district north of
Trondhjem, was looked upon, even as recently as the last century, as
a «common district». Only nomadic, even then to some extent
heathen, Lapps wandered about in it, sometimes taxed by all
three countries. A parcelling out of this desert, common
district was not made towards Russia until 1826! Towards
Sweden it was made in 1751, and it was principally on account of
the geographical ideas prevailing at that time on the subject of
mountain ranges as defined by watersheds, that the boundary was
drawn as far west on the mountain plateau as it lies, without
really being able to follow any watershed.
The inner districts of Finmarken, Karasjok and Kautokeino
have a population no denser than 1 per 4 sq. miles, the adjoining
parts of Finnish and Russian Lapland still fewer, and the width
of this desolate region is about 200 miles. Along the Swedish
frontier southwards to 64° N.Lat., the desert strip, serviceable
only to the nomadic Lapps, is about 120 miles wide, double the
width of Norway itself. Altogether, Lapland, which sends out
a wedge far down between Norway and Sweden, is calculated
to be 150,000 sq. miles with only 15,000 inhabitants — a perfect
arctic waste. Physically, it is an off-shoot from the tundra belt of
the shores of the Polar Sea. The height above the sea along the
frontier towards Swedish Norrland is about 2000 ft, the mean
annual temperature 32° to 28° Fahr., the temperature of January
about 10° Fahr.; the snow covers it for about 200 days in the
year, and even the large, deeper-lying lakes lie frozen from the
beginning of November until about June. It will be easily
understood that the population falls to 1 per 8 sq. miles.
This Lapland strip is almost broken off by the depression
round the Trondhjem Fjord. The forests from both sides meet
here in the glens between the valleys, and the lines of equal
altitude fall below 1000 ft. The population in the frontier district
rises to 2.5 per sq. mile, without the nomadic Lapps being
altogether replaced by the settled inhabitants. South again, in south
Jemtland, Herjedalen, the northern part of Dalecarlia and the
Klara district, the denseness of the population is again reduced
by half with the rising height of the mountains.
Here at about 62° N.Lat. the spread of the nomadic Lapps
to the south is checked for the present. We come from the
tundra off-shoot to the northern boundary of the great sub-arctic
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