ABSTRACT
The Tornio River, running through what was once the northernmost part of the Kingdom of Sweden, is a waterway whose meaning changed dramatically in 1809 when Sweden lost its ‘eastern provinces’ to Russia in the Finnish War. Up to that point the river had been a 410-km-long inland watercourse that provided means for mobility and a livelihood for the predominantly Finnish speaking inhabitants of the Tornio River valley. In 1809 the river gained a new function as an international boundary, first between Sweden and the Russian Empire and then, after 1917, between Sweden and the independent Republic of Finland (Lundén and Zalamans 2001).
