The Charm of Scandinavia

by Francis E. Clark; Sydney Clark

Sweden and Finland rest upon the same submerged plateau of solid rock, which adds another proof to my contention that, for all practical and descriptive purposes at least, Finland must still be considered a part of Scandinavia.

Though one crosses the Gulf of Bothnia in the night, he does not cross in the dark, for at this midsummer season there is no real darkness in this fairyland of midnight dawn. I was reminded very forcibly by contrast of the last time I crossed this bit of blue sea, for it was then a white sea. As far as the eye could reach, it could rest upon nothing but ice, solid fields of it, to the north and south, to the east and west.

Soon after we started it grew dark, for it was midwinter then. A blinding snowstorm came on; the road-way between the ice floes was a narrow one, and, that we might keep a straight course, a powerful searchlight rigged to the foremast was set blazing, and its blinding white light, far out over the expanse of ice and snow, showed the narrow line of blue through which we must steer. Sometimes we would pass a steamer with a searchlight of her own, dazzling us for a moment with her radiance, while we returned the compliment by throwing our searchlight into her eyes.

Men with lanterns and sledges came from the towns on the shore, far out from the land, to get the cargo meant for their port, and could come right up to the steamer’s side, for the ice made a continual wharf forty miles long to the sea.

When we struck the ice on the Finnish shore we found a different “proposition,” which the little Wellamo attacked right bravely, and for six hours or more we made good headway. When the ice was only three or four inches thick she would go through it as a cat would go through a pan of cream; when it was six or eight inches thick it was like plowing through soft butter; when it grew to be a foot thick it was like cutting our way through a stiff old cheese; and when the ice became two feet thick or more it was too much for the Wellamo, powerful as her engines were.

She would fall back and butt the ice again and again and again, but it was of no use. She would crunch it under her forefoot, and would almost rise on top of it, but it would always pile itself up in resistless masses in front of her.

Another ice-breaker came out from the Finnish shore to help us, but she proved of no avail, and was soon fast and tight in the ice two hundred yards from us. All day long the captain and crew worked to get us free. A dozen men with ice picks and axes hewed away at the frosty enemy that held us fast, but why the captain let them wear out their muscles in attempting the impossible I could not understand, for a tribe of Brownies might just as well attempt to level the Andes.

Families of seals came up through their breathing holes to look at us. They usually consisted of the old father and mother seal and one or two white, shaggy little babies, that looked like little polar bears. They were very tame and would let me go within twenty feet of them, when I left the steamer to pay them a visit. Then they would waddle off into the water. Sometimes a mother seal would poke her baby off the ice floe into the water out of harm’s way, which the little fellow apparently resented, for he would shake his shaggy head and scramble up on the ice again.

Surrounded by these interesting and novel scenes, we spent thirty hours ice-bound in the Baltic. Then the biggest ice-breaker of all, the Sampo, came to our rescue and landed us safely in Finland, after two nights and a day in the ice floe.

I was forcibly reminded of this memorable journey, because last night we sailed on the same stanch little steamer, the Wellamo, across smiling waters and between charming islands, with the sun to light our way for the most part instead of the electric lights, and when we reached the harbor there was that same benevolent old Sampo, the ice-breaker, that released us from our imprisonment, lying at the wharf. Her occupation is gone for the present, for, until next winter at least, she will not have to relieve any smaller steamers in distress, but can shove her ugly but useful nose in and out among the islands, whose people doubtless welcome her coming as we so gladly welcomed her on that January night which I have described.