He came, He saw and He observed-An Analysis of Reis door Noord Amerika by Pehr Kalm Julianne Lindner "On the 30th October we were ready to start our journey as soon as the sun rose. Close to the inn, where we spend the night, we were ferried over a river in a half rotten vessel. This is where the state of New York begins. Most of the people living here were Dutch, or others who settled down here while the Dutch were still in charge. Nowadays they were mixed with English and other Europeans, most of them spoke English. The view of the landscape was very pleasant, the view is not restricted by forests, and we could mostly see cultivated land." (Kalm, 1772, p. 102-103). A Swedish scientist in North America According to Carl Thompson, who teaches on English literature and Travel Culture, travel accounts are a quite popular genre these days. Just think about the television series by Michael Palin and Paul Theroux. Not only contemporary writings (or programmes) are in the centre of attention, but also the ones from the past. It creates curiosity and an illusion that there are still places in the world that are not yet discovered. Also the academic world pays growing attention to travel writings. The main aims for that research is to better understand the colonial and postcolonial times. The accounts show the activities of the travellers and the kind of ideas that were incentives for their journeys. Already at 3 MaRBLe Research Papers 60 the beginning of a travel the traveller encounters "otherness" and difference from his own environment. In most writings a distinction between "us & them" can be found. This happens often in the form of stereotypes. As a result the genre of travel accounts has been seen as a morally dubious form of literature (Thompson, 2011, p. 1-9). The quotation above stems from a travel account, Reis door Noord Amerika, written by MaRBLe Research Papers 62 After his trip he did supervise some dissertations that were related to this travel (Chinard, 1947, p.55). Kalm continued to teach at the university of Åbo and received several academic honors. Later on he became a Lutheran clergyman, like his father was before him. He died in 1779 (Jarell, 2000).