IS THE ARCTICRomantic?

4* SUMMER 2016 | Scandinavian PreSS

An interview with Swedish diplomat Andreas von Uexküll

By John Bechtel,Freelance Features Writer

Scandinavian PreSS | SUMMER 2016 4(

I n the world of the performing arts, the Romantic Period refers to a 75-year time spread in the nineteenth century known for its emphasis on emotions and spontaneity. The pianists Chopin and Liszt were part

of this movement, as were composers Berlioz and Verdi in opera. Over a century later, when thirty-year-old Andreas von Uexküll, staffer/second secretary with the Swedish embassy in Tallinn, Estonia, saw soprano Mariliina Vilimaa perform at a musical called “Bel Etage,” a romantic period of his own began.

They met soon after, as Mariliina continued her career as a singer for the Estonian National Opera. Two years later they flew together, now married, to Andreas’ new assignment in New York City, as a member of the Swedish Permanent Mission to the United Nations.

A lot has happened in the dozen or so years since. After spending half of that time at the U.N., they returned to Andreas’ native Sweden, where he served as Senior Arctic Official to the Arctic Council based in Stockholm.

Mariliina continues her love of music and the performing arts, and occasionally sings at private events. Today, they are the proud parents of four children: Liise-Lotte, 19; Johannes, 10; Adele, 9; and Mathilde, 4. Liise-Lotte attends university at Stockholm, and the rest of the family are back in America, this time to Washington, D.C., where Andreas is Minister Counselor for Trade and EconomicAffairs.

Andreas von Uexküll

Andreas and Mariliina Vilimaa von Uexküll with three of their four children, Adele, 9; Johannes, 10; and Mathilde, 4.(Continued on page 00)

Left: House of Sweden is a stunning example of contemporary Scandinavian architecture designed by Gert Wingårdh and Tomas Hansen. It was inaugurated in 2006, as the new home of the Embassy of Sweden in Washington D.C. As a physical representation of Swedish values such as openness, transparency and democracy, House of Sweden is the flagship of Swedish public diplomacy in the United States.

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Swedish Icebreaker Oden It is obvious Andreas is enthusiastic

about his work, and he is quite fluent about it. For example, did you know that 1,200 Swedish companies and U.S. exports to Sweden combined, create over 330,000 direct jobs in the United States? Or that the large Swedish icebreaker Oden (named after the Norse god Odin), was the first non-nuclear icebreaker to reach the North Pole, on September 7, 1991? That it has been to the North Pole five times since then? Built in 1988, it has a helicopter on board, and was commissioned to clear a passage for cargo ships in the Gulf of Bothnia, between Sweden and Finland.

Later modified as a research vessel, it has a crew of 15 and space for laboratory equipment and 80 scientist-passengers. The Oden was chartered from 2006/07 through 2010/11 by the US National Science Foundation to

break the ice channel into the American McMurdo Research Station on the Ross Sea in Antarctica. On board it has advanced scientific equipment designed to do seabed mapping in both the Arctic and the Antarctic, able to penetrate up to 100 meters (328 feet) of ocean floor sediment.

This year the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat (a government agency in charge of coordinating and promoting Swedish polar research activities) announced an Arctic research expedition to be jointly held onboard the Oden and the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Louis S. St-Laurent in the Canadian archipelago from August 5 through September 20 of this

In 2004, Sweden’s largest icebreaker, Oden, assisted the high-profile research mission of Arctic Coring Expedition, ACEX. The mission was to drill about 450 meters into the sediment of the seabed of the Arctic Ocean at 1200 meters water depth. The sediment cores were used for reconstruction of the environmental history over the past 56 million years in the Arctic.

The indications given by the core samples are that the Arctic Ocean once had experienced 20º C (68º F) surface temperature. Further studies will establish the precise nature of the transition periods from hothouse to icehouse that this region evidently has experienced already once.

year. This is dubbed an Early-Career Scientist program and each “cadet” will be assigned a mentor.

Swedish Industryand Trade in the Arctic

It would seem to the casual observer that there is considerable overlap in the focus of Andreas von Uexküll’s current position as Minister Counselor for Trade and Economic Affairs and his prior position as Senior Arctic Official. In Arctic Sweden, mining and forestry are major economic activities. The largest iron ore mine in Europe is in Kiruna, and Sweden boasts the Aitik open pit copper mine, according

to some sources the EU’s largest, near Gällivare; both places are above the Arctic Circle. Additionally, there are shipping, oil spill prevention, the maritime industry, weather and ice information services, space industry, and research and development. In fact, the Scandinavian Arctic is by far the most-developed part of the pan-Arctic world. The Arctic region of Sweden plays an important and growing role in their national economic health.

Arctic TourismThen there is tourism. Arctic

tourism is not a homogenous industry:(Continued on page 00)

Vast quantities of rock are mined and transported around the clock, every day at Aitik’s open pit mine, located above the Arctic Circle, in the municipality of Gällivare, Sweden. The deposit consists of chalcopyrite and pyrite yielding copper, gold and silver. Aitik employs approximately 679 people and is the largest private employer in Gällivare.

PHOTO: WWW.ARCTICCENTRE.ORG

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(Continued from page 00)

there is the mass market of sightseers; there is the sport fishing and hunting market; the ecotourism market—those who seek solitude with nature and to see wildlife in its natural habitat; the adventure tourism market such as downhill skiing or dog sledding; and finally the market that perhaps most of our readers fall into, the culture and heritage tourism market. These are travelers who want to experience the lives and habits of the native population and learn more about the history of the people and places they visit. However fleetingly they want to participate in a lifestyle that deserves preservation, not merely observe it. They respect the value and fragility of their unfamiliar surroundings. The Arctic region with its austere and eerily quiet moonscapes,

Sweden

Norway

FinlandRussia

Estonia

Latvia

Belarus

Lithuania

PolandGermany

Denmark

Stockholm•

•Kiruna

•Tallinn

Vilnius•

•Minsk

Warsaw•

Gulf ofBothnia

BalticSea

Helsinki•

Copenhagen•

Oslo•

Riga•

Russia

Gulf ofFinland

Berlin•

•St.Petersburg

Gällivare•The BalticRegion

harsh environments, and indigenous populations with highly adaptive survival practices has a strong appeal for such travelers.

Our thanks to Minister Counselor Andreas von Uexküll and his family for sharing a small part of their story and the story of the Swedish Arctic, where ancient traditions and cutting edge technology come together.

Is the Arctic Romantic?To return to our opening analogy

with the Romantic Period in the arts, with its emphasis on emotions and the individual, we might ask is the Arctic romantic? If it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, I leave you with this painting (see next page) of what could have been an Arctic landscape, entitled “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog.” It was painted by Romantic Period artist Caspar David Friedrich in 1818. How do you experience it? What feelings does it evoke?

Hope or despair? Promise or warning? Invitation to adventure or potential for disaster? Familiar or frightening? Loneliness or welcome solitude? The Arctic has been all of these things to different people at different times. It has been said that the difference between loneliness and aloneness is that one is a form of emotional neediness and absence of something, and the other is an expression of completeness, abundance, and a source of energy. That one is about fear and the other is a form of fullness and capacity to share. Today the Arctic is about respect and awe combined with cautious optimism for its potential, if shared and used wisely. We cannot be indifferent to the Arctic.

It moves us. It is romantic.Half-a-million indigenous people

live their lives above the Arctic Circle, in an environment so harsh it destroyed all but the very hardiest of the European explorers. In the three countries of Norway, Sweden, and Finland, with the most developed Arctic regions of the circumpolar world, these aboriginal tribes live in this reality without borders. They call it home. Who are they? What can we learn from them? Would you like to meet them? What is going to happen to them? They too, are part of our Nordic heritage.

Read more about them in a future issue of Scandinavian Press.

An exuberant Andreas von Uexküllplants the Swedish flag at the North Pole during a visit to the region. The area holds major strategic significance for the handful of nations that ring the Arctic Circle—the United States (Alas-ka), Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark (Greenland), Iceland, Sweden, and Finland. Russia has the longest Arctic coastline by far, extending more than ten thousand miles.