Some regions sourced their specialties from the forest. Charcoal and tar were among the first widely manufactured goods. Another product was potash, containing potassium carbonate (K₂CO₃). Potash was obtained by burning wood and then leaching out the salt from the ash. The lye made could make soap and soapy, but it was also used in the textile industry and glassworks. Farmers from Göinge traveled with chests and cartwheels to the plain's markets.
The beginning of sawmills
Sawn timber became the breakthrough for the Swedish forest industry, an astounding export success from the mid-1800s. It is unclear when water saw technology reached Scandinavia, but the first records of Swedish water saws are from the 1400s.
In the late 1500s, the Crown examined if larger sawmills could be established in Norrland. After the end of the Great Northern War in 1721, the saw industry in Norrland truly began, partially for export.
In the 1740s, a technological shift from coarse-bladed to fine-bladed saws began. Inventor Christopher Polhem complained that boards from coarse-bladed saws were "furry like bears." Much of the log was lost in sawdust and sometimes in plane shavings.
Rivers and steam
The breakthrough came during the 1800s. Western Europe’s industrialization led to a significant surge in construction. There was a great demand for boards. When England introduced free trade, a vast market opened.
The rivers provided Swedish sawmills with a competitive advantage—it was cheaper and easier to get the logs than in other countries. Mid-century the steam saws came, offering greater capacity and a longer season than water saws.
Growth was unprecedented. From 1846-1850, lumber accounted for about 15 percent of exports—in the late 1860s, it rose to more than half.
Some of the early sawmill patrons became fabulously wealthy. The Kempe family stood behind MoDo, but another family branch built the lavishly decorated Hallwyl Palace in Stockholm.
Circular saws
The major story of the Swedish sawmill era is about the Norrland coast. But alongside frame saws, another kind of saw industry emerged in southern Sweden. It relied on the circular saw patented in France and England around the turn of the 1800s, but Christopher Polhem had actually constructed a wind-powered circular saw in the early 1700s.
One of the first circular saws was established on Göta River in the 1850s, but it was not until the 1870s that the breakthrough occurred. Circular saws were primarily used at smaller sawmills. Many were established by southern Sweden’s railways, which could transport both roundwood and finished boards.
From the 1870s to the mid-1900s, thousands of small circular saws were established. The circular saws played an important role in the shift in southern Swedish farmers' view of the forest. Thanks to the small village saws, the forest found new uses and value. It contributed to making rational silviculture profitable and possible.
Pulp Industry
The sawmills could only use part of the logs. Initially, the waste became charcoal, boxes, or simply firewood, but in the 1870s, the first pulp mills were established. Until then, paper was made from textile rags—now cellulose opened entirely new possibilities.
The sulfite process yielded the brightest and strongest pulp suitable for newsprint. The sulfate pulp colored brown in the process was initially used for tough paper.
From 1890 to 1920, the pulp industry underwent a significant expansion. The focus shifted from sawmills to pulp mills— from being the world's leading exporter of sawn goods at the turn of the century, the country became the top pulp exporter by the outbreak of World War I.
Not only sawmill waste but also spruce and small trees found a new outlet in the pulp industry. In the early sawmill era, companies were only interested in large pines. Spruces weren’t included in contracts until the 1860s.
Paper mills
Thanks to the availability of cellulose, Sweden became a leading paper producer. The Chinese had made paper in the 100s AD. European papermaking started in Spain and Italy in the 1200s. The first paper letters reached the Nordic region from the Pope in Avignon in the 1350s.
The oldest surviving documents in the Nordics are written on parchment, produced by scraping animal skins clean and grinding them to the right size. It was a laborious process, making the material expensive, so sometimes parchment was scraped and reused—recycling paid off.
In Sweden, the production of wood-based paper took off in earnest around 1900. Paper mills' expansion was hampered by several countries imposing higher tariffs on paper than on pulp. They wanted to reserve the more profitable paper production for their producers.
Yet the forest industry managed to maintain its position as Sweden’s leading export industry. During most years from the mid-1800s for a century, sawmills, pulp industries, and paper mills comprised 40 to 50 percent of Swedish exports. After World War II
Old norrland aquavit
It wasn’t just sawmills that spawned new industries. The cellulose industry became a breeding ground for new products. Early on, new uses for fibers were pondered. In the 1890s, Alfred Nobel attempted to produce artificial leather and synthetic rubber from cellulose. Around the same time, other inventors sought ways to use cellulose in textiles. In our time, there is hope that this will reduce dependence on cotton and oil-based synthetic fibers.
A byproduct of the sulfite process is monosaccharides. Most sulfite spirit was used industrially, but in 1919 it became legal to make aquavit from sulfite spirit. The following year "Unspiced Table Aquavit" began selling, later renamed "Unspiced Table Aqvavit." The same year "Refined Table Aquavit" followed. "Reimersholms Aqvavit" hit the market in 1922 and "Old Norrland Aquavit" in 1928. One by one, these sorts disappeared—the last was "Old Norrland Aquavit," ceasing production in 1988. After World War II