The happiest place on earth is….

Not Disneyland or Disney World but…

…Finland?

Apparently that’s the case. In fact, in 2020, for the fourth year in a row, Finland was ranked as the happiest country in the world, according to the 2021 World Happiness Report, a publication of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network that was released on March 19.

Oddly, today’s #stampoftheday honors not the happy Finns who live in Finland but, rather, the Finns who left their happy place for the United States. It’s a 3-cent stamp, issued in 1938 honoring the 300th anniversary of the U.S. of the arrival of the first Swedish (and Finnish) settlers, who, on March 29, 1638, established the New Sweden Colony, which encompassed parts of present-day Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Technically, one might argue there weren’t any Finns among the settlers, because, at the time, what is now Finland was part of a larger and more imperial Sweden, which had gradually taken control of Finland in the Middle Ages. By the 1600s, Wikipedia reports, “In Sweden…it was clear that Finland was a conquered country and its inhabitants could be treated arbitrarily. Swedish kings visited Finland rarely and in Swedish contemporary texts Finns were portrayed to be primitive and their language inferior.”

In the 1600s, rules of Sweden, which at the time also included parts of Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Germany, and the Soviet Union, decided they too wanted in on the action in the New World. According to the ever-helpful Mystic Stamp website, “In 1637, a group of Swedish, Dutch, and German stockholders created the New Sweden Company to trade fur and tobacco. Later that year, Peter Minuit sailed the company’s first ship to North America. In March 1638, they reached the Minquas Kill (present-day Christina River) near today’s Wilmington. After coming ashore, Minuit met with the Lenape tribe and negotiated to buy land on the west riverbank of the Delaware River south of today’s Wilmington up to the Schuylkill River (south of present-day Philadelphia). The purchase was completed on March 29, 1638, and Minuit declared the area the colony of New Sweden. Minuit ordered the construction of Fort Christina (named for the princess and future queen), the first permanent white settlement, at the present-day site of Wilmington.” (I add that there is no truth to the non-existent rumor that Joe Biden is so old that he was one of those original white settlers.)

In the early 1650s, the Dutch, who controlled nearby New Amsterdam, took issue with the Swedish claim and, after a series of skirmishes, in 1655 they gained control of New Sweden. Nevertheless, many who immigrated there from Sweden (including what became Finland) stayed and lived in peace under Dutch rule.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, wars between Sweden and Russia led to two devastating occupations of Finland by Russian forces in the first half of the 18th century. In 1809, Finland became part of Russia and in the late 1800s and in early 1900s there was growing support for Finnish independence. In late 1917, after the Bolsheviks had come to power in Russia, Finnish leaders declared independence – and Finland almost immediately fell into a short but bitter civil war.

So Finland was a relatively young country when it came time to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the landing of Swedes and Finns in what is now Delaware. Swedes and Swedish-Americans had been focusing on this anniversary for some time. However, by the 1930s, there was growing interest among Finns and Finnish Americans in doing the same, although many felt that Finnish immigration should wait the 300th anniversary of the 1641 expedition that brought large number of Finns to America. Others thought it wise to piggyback onto the celebration in 1837Many Swedes and Swedish-Americans were less than thrilled with this idea. Finally, after much debate, in 1937 Congress approved a measure allowing President Franklin Roosevelt – who personally selected the design of today’s stamp – to officially invite the Finnish Government to be part of the celebration in 1938,

While the 1938 stamp was part of a celebration of those who left Finland, the recent World Happiness Report is a homage to the ancestors of those who stayed behind. The report’s findings – and Finland’s continued hold on first place – were particularly striking because they included data from the pandemic year. (Other countries near the top of the list included Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, the Netherlands, and Norway. The only non-European country the top 10 was New Zealand,)

According to John Helliwell, a Canadian economist who oversees the study, “Surprisingly there was not, on average, a decline in well-being when measured by people’s own evaluation of their lives. One possible explanation is that people see COVID-19 as a common, outside threat affecting everybody and that this has generated a greater sense of solidarity and fellow-feeling.”

Economist Jeffrey Sachs, who also worked on the study, added: “The 2021 World Health Report “reminds us that we must which will be fleeting indeed if we don’t do a much better job of addressing the challenges of sustainable development.”

It sounds like we’ve got a lot to learn, particularly from residents of Finland and several other Nordic countries.

Stay safe, be well, “aim for wellbeing rather than mere wealth, fight for justice, and work for peace.