The largest town in nothern Sweden, pop ca 100 000. A
university with schools for dentists and
dental technicians is situated here.
The odontological faculty was the first education at
what was later to be the university.
This happend on the 30th of aug 1956. About
43 years ago. Nowadays the university has 26500 students.
The town is called "the Birchtown" because of a fire 1888,
when over 90% of the town burnt down.
It was then discovered that birches planted alongside
the streets prevents fire from rapidly spreading
from house to house. Still today the streets are lined
with birches. Birchplants are even distributed for
free each spring, in order to keep up the reputation
as the town of the birches. Some people say that
the more correct name of the town should be, "the town
of the birches". To argue with that we have
to go 30 years back in time, when three prisoners at
the local jail formed a folkgroup and sang their
way into the swedish hit charts. The name of the group
was Jailbird singers. They "cemented"
the shorter name of the town, as the right one. Short
and snappy. The longer name may be grammatically
more correct but it does not really "click".
Thanks to the dental technician school, Umea has the highest
concentration of laboratories in Sweden.
About 20 dental laboratories of all sizes compete on
the market.
Wennströms Dentalteknik AB--Krusbärsvägen 10--904 35 Umeå--Tel/Fax 090/46 771
E-mail to Lennart Wennström: info@wennstrom.se