The year
The sun
The book says that for some months in summer the sun does not set, and in winter it does not rise. Herbersten says the dark lasts forty days. The book says the same count does not hold for the whole country, because part lies nearer the pole, and part further east or west. Even in winter the sun comes so near each day that there is a twilight. When the moon shines, Petrus Claudius says, they fish and do the work out of doors. If the moon does not shine and the air is clear, the stars and the whiteness of the snow are enough. In summer the sun travels low, but for so long that the heat grows. Spring and autumn, the book says, are what strangers count, not what they know. On 24 June 1616, going to the church the book calls Thor, Olaus Petri Nieuren saw the trees budding and the grass green. A fortnight later the leaves were full and the plants in flower. (Schefferus 1674)
The snow
The air, the book says, is cold, clear, and wholesome, and the winds are hard. An eyewitness told him of a wind off the sea. In summer it raises a cloud that hides the sight. In winter it drives the snow. A person caught in it lies down under a garment and waits until the storm has passed. The paths are then gone. On the mountains the wind carries things away. The shelter is a cave. There is so much snow that in winter the whole country is covered. Moonlight thrown back from the snow shows the pits, the cliffs, and the animals. On trodden snow two reindeer, the book says, draw a greater load than a cart and ten horses at another time. The snow on the highest mountains does not melt. Elsewhere the meltwater floods the land. Rivers freeze so that the ice is more than three or four cubits thick. The lakes and the sea bear a load. A mist can be so thick that a person close by cannot be told apart. (Schefferus 1674)
The ground
The ground, the book says, is stony and rocky, and softened by the floods of the lakes and rivers. Olaus Petri says the southern part is as fit for grain as Western Bothnia. The book answers that stone, sand, moors, and standing water are not the marks of corn land. There is plenty of grass, and the cattle are fattened on it more cheaply and sooner than on anything else. The woods are large, especially toward Norway, but not thick. High mountains the book calls Doffrini. No tree grows on their bare tops. In the valleys below there are springs, and the water is clear. The forests have standing pools. Of the beasts, the birds, and the fish, the book promises to speak in their own chapters. (Schefferus 1674)