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Editor's Note: About the author of the article below: Kaarina
Jager, born on the Artic Circle in northern Finland, has lived in
Roswell for 21 years. She speaks several languages; English is a
secondary one. She is a widow with two sons, one of whom currently
attends college at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. Her
other son, Austhan Jager, died on December 29, 2002 while in high
school after a long heroic battle with cancer. Because Roswell was
hometown to both of her sons and in memory of Austhan, and also
because she wants to leave a personal legacy to her adopted town,
Roswell, Kaarina hopes to promote it--to local residents, including
its school children, as well as to tourists, as she had done and is
again doing in her hometown of Naantali.
Following is excerpted from two of Kaarina's articles, one
originally titled Vallis Gratie since 1443.
(Old Town Harbor and Old Convent Church in Naantali. Sept. 2005
photo by Kaarina Jager.)
NAANTALI, FINLAND
by Kaarina Jager
The town of Naantali was founded to serve the convent of St. Bridget
on the southwestern Finnish Baltic coast in 1443 by the order of the
Swedish king. Every house was to have an inn, a bed and breakfast
service, for the pilgrims and their horses. This tradition of
hospitality has stayed with that small town of a few hundred people
throughout the centuries.
Today a modern oil refinery and the third largest Finnish harbor are
located there and provide a tax base for the development of the Old
Convent Church and Historic District, as well as for the building of
the new Spa and Children's Adventure Park.
I was fortunate to be called to attend tour guide classes this past
fall of 2005 in my ancestral hometown of Naantali. The course is
organized by Naantali Tour Guide Association and Finland's Tour
Guide Association, and for a large part, financed by a European
Union grant. Several weekly classes and fieldtrips are included in
the course (for about a semester and a half) and the 25 participants
are expected to pass an extensive written exam, write a research
paper, and also pass a practical tour guide exam.
I was asked to do the tours in English for the benefit of the many
foreigners who visit Naantali Classic Music Festival or the Moomin
Children's Park during the summer season. My course is not quite
over, although I did finish my required research paper; the subject
I chose was my family's life in Naantali over the last 500 years. I
still need to take my finals and do a "practice tour" exam.
Naantali has been a popular tourist resort for centuries, and
expects over 600 busloads of visitors this coming summer, not to
mention individual travelers. Many are from around the world, but
visitors are also local schoolchildren on field trips.
Naantali Travel is a private travel bureau consisting of the City of
Naantali (now 14,000 inhabitants), the Tour Guide Association, and
other private businesses like the Naantali Spa and Children's Park.
The agency markets the city and its services and develops travel
packages including: restaurants, cafes, hotels, local and nearby
locations of interest.
For about 30 years, in one form or another, there has "officially"
been an organized effort to promote tourism in Naantali and other
Finnish towns. I, for example, took part in my first tour guide
classes in a nearby college town some 30 years ago and was a tour
guide during my summer vacations when I lived in Finland.
Here are just a few of the many sites we toured and topics we
studied in my current class: Finland's Presidential Summer
Residence, Kultaranta, and 100 years of Finnish presidents; Old Town
and Old Convent Church archeological sites; Naantali Historical
Museum with its Convent Exhibit; the Mannerheim Estate, home of the
country's president; Askainen Medieval Church; the Community Center
Kummeli in Velkua; medieval churches of Lemu, Merimasku and
Rymattyla; the Old Town Historical District; history of the
Naantalie Spa and the New Spa tour; the enduring small individual
industries of knitting socks; water, air and land environmental
protection of the 30,000 Baltic Islands; ballads and poems of
Coppermountain; area plant life and birds, flora and fauna;
industries and assets including fishing, farming, ranching,
shipyards and harbors on the Baltic Coast; history of women in
business; Finnish language and its southwestern dialects; the annual
Book and Food Fair; the state's Lutheran Church history including
the new Parish Hall; the life and influence of St. Bridget in
Finland; the new Ecumenical Chapel; the history of the Convent
Church and the Convent; Raisio Medieval Church and Medieval life in
Finland; history of development of the state's religions: Kalevala,
Catholic Church, Lutheran Church and newer religious groups; the
town's and its schools' histories; the history of Naantali Harbor
and its major industries; Cemetery tour; sports: ice hockey, figure
skating rinks, sports stadium and gyms; city government; Naantalie
Summer Classic Music Festival; and the Moomin Children's Park. Our
training even included first aid.
From the above, you can see how extensive the course is, even for a
small town.
History of visitors to Naantali goes back hundreds of years starting
with the pilgrims, continuing a few hundred years later with the
addition of Russian and Swedish visitors to the "old spa," and
today, includes local school children learning about their roots and
international visitors touring its many attractions. The tour
approach is varied; it is set upon strong traditions and a
formidable tax-base!
Each town must discover its own roots, build on them, develop their
sites, educate its people and tour guides, and market its unique
history and attractions to visitors.
 Coppermountain
Rocks in Naantali. Sept. 2005 photo by Kaarina Jager
Also visit:
Billy the Kid Rides Again —Two
articles by Jay Miller, previously published in various New Mexico
newspapers, are reprinted here, with the author's permission. These
cover current events pertaining to the ongoing Billy saga.
A Bonney Ballad
— A bit of
Billy the Kid history put to rhyme.
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