At my school in Sweden I had a very boring young mathematics teacher. None of us could have imagined that Mr Löfgren was the only man in the world to have crossed South America in a motro cycle.

The world-famous explorer Stanley who found Livingstone also discovered the world’s second largest river. To further explore the congo River, he hired the Swedish naval captian Anton Emanuel Andersson. What few people know is that when the Belgians colonized Congo they relied alomost entirely on skippers from Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

FINLAND

Peter Kalm or Pehr Kalm (1716-1779) was the most famous of the "apostles" of Carl LInneus, the Swedish botanist. The son of a Finnish clergyman, Peter studied in Åbo and then at Vasa University where be became a student of the great botanist.

Carl Lineus was one of the founders of the royal Swedish Academy of Sciences that sent young naturalists to various far-off countries to find new plants that could bring benefit to the Swedish economy. He regarded Peter Kalm as his best student and expeditions to Siberia, Greenland, the Cape of Good Hope were considered before settling on North America. In November 1747 Peter Kalm sailed from Gothenburg accompanied by his faithful servant Jungström. After a two-month stopover in Oslo, Kalm continued to London where he stayed for half a year making observations and learning the language. One of the finest persons to receive him when he arrived in Philadelphia on the "Mary Golly" was Benjamin Franklin who was the postmaster of the city. Franklin introduced Kalm to several members of the former New Sweden colony of both Swedish and Finnish origin since Finland belonged to Sweden at the time. Peter Kalm settled down on what had been old Swedish soil at Swedesboro and even preached in the old remaining Swedish churches there.

After visiting New York, Peter Kalm sailed up the Hudson river to Albany, and up the Woodcreek River "where travellers had to try to avoid both mosquitoes and threatening Indians", finally arriving at St. Frederic on the Canadian side. he was to visit both Montreal and Quebec City but what made the biggest impression on him was the Niagara Falls. The trip to the falls was dangerous and a special royal permit was required. Peter Kalm was one of the first Europeans to visit the falls, but instead of breaking out into exaggerated exclamations, the scientist sat down near the river and tried to estimate the amount of water that flowed down the enormous falls and rapids. Kalm’s description was later published by Benjamin Franklin in sever North American as well as European magazines and gazettes of the time.

Throughout his journeys in the eastern parts of North America, Peter Kalm kept a diary and recorded everything he saw. "Nothing escapes our traveller, this minutious observer" wrote Rousseau in a preface to one of the editions of Kalm’s "Travels into North America" that was translated into English, French, German and Dutch.

Back in Finland, Kalm and his students also wrote 146 dissertations on anything from "dye plants" to rattle snakes to canoes. Hid main interest in nature was economical so when he wrote about Indian-type birch bark canoes, he also assumed it could become a successful Finnish product. Unfortunately the Finnish birch bark was not suitable. He was not much luckier with American plants. He had returned with seventy species that he planted in the Åbo experimental garden that he called "my little America". Only fifteen survived.

All in all the trip was a success. Peter Kalm had found a wife in American (the widow of an old friend Johan Sandin, who had been the vicar of the Swedish congregation). He had returned in good health. Many of Linneaus’ "apostles" never returned alive. The trip had brought him fame and he was even offered a professorship in St. Petersburg. Peter Kalm stayed however with his Åbo (Turku ) Alma mater and was even ordained so that he could maintain a profitable vicarage on the side.