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National Geographic : 1964 Feb
Contents
though he arrived in the capital by jet. Here he emerges from the Market Hall amid a knot of peo ple. White-columned Presidential Palace, where cacy that we know as crawfish at home. Suddenly, out of the crowd stepped a mus cular fellow with a familiar face. Unexpected ly, I had met Paavo Nurmi, the great long distance runner of 40 years ago; the "Flying Finn" was shopping here too. In 1923, a gen eration before the 4-minute mile, Nurmi ran a mile in 4:10.4, a record that stood until 1931. Today he owns a men's clothing store in Helsinki. Later in the day, when we passed the docks again, I noticed that other Finns can ring up records for speed. Every sign and scrap of the market had vanished. As our guide explained, "The whole market can be closed and scrubbed down in half an hour." One-fourth of Finland lies above the Arc tic Circle, so we flew north to see a bit of Lapland. Crisp, clear weather permitted us H LtKIACHHUM U NAIIONAL GEOGRAPHICSOCIETY chief executive Urho Kekkonen received the then Vice President, overlooks the harbor beneath a round advertising sign just left of center. to look down on rivers clogged with floating logs. Timber is the great industry of this re gion; the wood beneath us would soon be crushed into newsprint for readers in Helsin ki, Paris-or New York. Northland Resembles Minnesota Our 707 landed at Rovaniemi (page 268), the first big jet ever to put down in this chief city of Lapland. My Minnesota-raised friend and assistant George Reedy announced, "This looks just like the land around Hib bing." Perhaps he had explained why so many of our half million American-Finns settled around the Great Lakes. But the simi larity to Minnesota vanished when we got to town. Rovaniemi has a look all its own. "We had to rebuild our city after World War II," a Finn explained at a luncheon giv 281
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