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experience taught the art of travelling on streams
where it was dangerous for less expert men to sail.
To-day the navigation here is of great importance,
especially in the north; and the tar boats, which are
the main means of communication on the Uleå, are
one example of this river-communication. These with
their sworn pilots continue to be the regular means
of communication, and for strangers it is a great
attraction to travel in this novel manner.
Work was undertaken in early days to overcome
the difficulties on the streams; and in modern times
the great canals have been among the most important
means of opening up the country and increasing the
value of the forest and land. The present increase of
communication on these lakes gives some idea of the
importance of the work. The Saima lake district, in
which the waterfalls on the Vuoksi formerly hindered
all access from the sea, is the largest of its kind in
Europe, covering 64,000 square kilometres, or one-sixth
of the whole of Finland, in a district where one-fifth of
the population live. Ships from other countries can
now penetrate by these lakes 400 kilometres into the
country. The two other lake-systems farther to the west,
the Päijänne and Näsijärvi, have not the same area,
but are of importance. At the end of the fifteenth
century, Erik Thureson Bjelke, who commanded the
forts of Viborg on the sea, and of Nyslott between
the lakes, tried to open an outlet here. The idea was
taken up a century later by General Pontus de la
Gardie, a French emigre, and some years later by
Charles XI. It has now been carried through under
the direction of the Swedish Lieutenant-Colonel Baron
Nils Ericsson, brother to the well-known inventor and
engineer, John Ericsson, who designed the Monitor and
invented the screw. At a cost of 12⅓ million marks
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