Page - 212 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 5212 sociability of Eiler Hagerup (1736–95), the senior district stipendiary of Finn- mark, in whose agreeable company they had already spent several weeks when they traveled north from Trondheim the previous year. They also met historian and translator of the ancient laws of Norway Hans Paus (1710–70) and surveyor of western Finnmark and amateur astronomer Christian Frost Bredahl (1717– 1811).8 Years later, Hell remembered his visit to Talvik in colorful terms: There is hardly a place in the European part of the world surpassing it in beauty. Toward the end of July, when I visited this place surrounded by high mountains at roughly one mile’s distance, I saw the most idyllic for- ests with various sorts of trees, luxuriant fields, and gardens with blos- soming plants belonging to the zone of temperate climate, among them carpets of flowering Linneas [Linnaea borealis]. The summits wrapped in snow, the hillsides covered with green trees, and spring meeting summer in the valleys, were a wonderful sight. Then, there was the refreshing air, the sweetest of Zephyrs blowing, in a day that knows no night. Therefore this place, at the seventieth latitude, is rightfully called the “Paradise of Finnmark” by its inhabitants. Bewildered, I found this to be what it really was—a paradise.9 They also spent several days in the port of Tromsø, no doubt motivated by Borchgrevink’s wish to pay a family visit to his sister and brother-in-law, who worked there as a priest. In total, the return journey to Trondheim lasted a good nine weeks, this time not primarily as a result of adverse winds (although they had their share of them as well) but because the Jesuit wanted to explore the area and cultivate friendships. There is no reason to characterize this as a pause from Hell’s otherwise devoted adherence to the scientific goals of the expedition. Interaction with local informants was of utmost importance to eighteenth-century traveling explorers. Ultimately, any fruitful collection of information was based on sociability. In an addition to the diary from the stay in Tromsø, Sajnovics noted: The Lapps that are in the area of Tromsø stay here for no more than seven or eight weeks. Their winters are spent in Sweden. And since they are un- able to speak Norwegian, they carry with them [written] testimony from 8 Sajnovics, travel diary, draft version (wus), on July 22–27, 1769. 9 Hell, “Observationes astronomicae latitudinum, et longitudinum locorum borealium Dani- ae, Sueciae, et Finnmarchiae Lapponicae per iter arcticum annis 1768, 1769, et 1770 factae,” Ephemerides 1791 (1790): 300–86, here 321. Translation in Lynne Hansen and Aspaas, Maximi­ lian Hell’s Geomagnetic Observations, 34.