Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Education and Mental Culture. Introd. by P. E. Lindström - 6. Touring. By [L. Améen] G. Åsbrink
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
436 iv. education and mental cultulle.
6. TOURING.
Introduction. Organization.
Seen from the tourist’s point of view, Sweden may be said to consist of
three great provinces, differing widely from each other both in their
natural character and in the life and occupations of the inhabitants
— Southern Sweden, the Forest Region, and the Alpine Regions. Southern
Siveden presents to the gaze of the tourist lowland scenery of a charming
character; its comparatively populous districts have been cultivated from
ancient times and possess numerous monuments of their ancient history,
from the graves of the Stone Age and the rock-pictures of the Bronze
Age to the magnificent castles and country mansions, dating from the
period of Sweden’s political greatness (1611—1718). The Forest Region
or, roughly speaking, the eastern half of Northern Sweden, gains its
character from the immense stretches of forest in which it abounds, broken
only by huge rivers and other waterways. The principal attractions for
tourists in this region consist of the great lakes, the river valleys with
their multitude of majestic waterfalls, their lively timber-trade and the
salmon fisheries. Finally, the Alpine Regions, or the western half of
North Sweden, is a wild tract of country, inhabited almost exclusively by
the nomadic Laplanders and a few settlers from other parts of Sweden,
where the tourist has excellent opportunities of enjoying the delights of
a picturesque camp-life amid surroundings of an alpine world, whose
summits, it is true, as a rale do not much exceed 2 000 meters in height, but
which, in consequence of its northerly latitude, possesses large
glacier-districts, and which, thanks to its wealth of small lakes and the remarkable
character of the birch-vegetation, has a special beauty of its own.
It was not before the two last-mentioned parts of the country were
placed in convenient communication with South Sweden by means of the
main lines to Norrland, constructed in the eighties and nineties, that the
interest for touring their own country awakened among the Swedes. But
then it was discovered that the landscape in the North of Sweden possessed
treasures of beauty which, to the greater part of the nation, were as good
as unknown, and this discovery gave rise to the formation of a Swedish
Tourist Association. Begun in 1885, by students of the university
of Uppsala, but with its headquarters transferred to Stockholm in 1887.
the Swedish Tourist Association has ever since directed the development
of Swedish tourist life.
The Association, which enjoys the patronage of H. M. the King, has become
so very popular that, at the close of 1913, it numbered 56 382 members and
1 155 agents. The impulse given by the birth of the Association has led to
the formation of smaller tourist associations in various parts of the country,
whose aim is to further the interests of their respective districts.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
