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Expedition to Lapland


The Expedition to Lapland, the northernmost region in Sweden, by Carl Linnaeus in 1732 was an important part of his scientific career.

Linnaeus departed from Uppsala and travelled clockwise around the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia over the course of six months, making major inland incursions from Umeå, Luleå and Tornio. His observations became the basis of his book Flora Lapponica (1737) in which Linnaeus’ ideas about nomenclature and classification were first used in a practical way. Linnaeus kept a journal of his expedition which was first published posthumously as an English translation called Lachesis Lapponica: A Tour in Lapland (1811).

In April 1732, Linnaeus was awarded a grant from the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala for his journey. Olof Rudbeck the Younger, one of Linnaeus' former professors at Uppsala University, had made an expedition to Lapland in 1695, but the detailed results of his exploration were lost in a fire seven years afterwards. Linnaeus' hope was to find new plants, animals and possibly valuable minerals. He was also curious about the customs of the native Sami people, reindeer-herding nomads who wandered the vast tundras of Scandinavia.

Linnaeus began his expedition from Uppsala in May; he travelled on foot and horse, bringing with him his journal, botanical and ornithological manuscripts and sheets of paper for pressing plants. It took him 11 days to reach Umeå, via Gävle (near which he found great quantities of Campanula serpyllifolia, later known as Linnaea borealis, the twinflower that would become his favourite). He sometimes dismounted on the way to examine a flower or rock and was particularly interested in mosses and lichens, the latter a main part of the diet of the reindeer, a common animal in Lapland.


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