LAESTADIUS, LARS LEVI (1800–1861), Sami minister, writer, ecologist, mythologist, and ethnographer who became the founder of Laestadian Lutheran revivalist movement. Laestadius was born January 10, 1800, in the Swedish Lappland village town of Jäkkvik to a Sami mother and a Swedish father. After Laestadius's alcoholic father lost his job, the family went to live with Lars's half-brother, Carl Erik, a Lutheran pastor in Kvikkjokk. Carl Erik was an also amateur botanist and encouraged his younger brother's interest in the subject.

When Lars was 16, he entered the Härnösand Gymnasium. Three years later his avid interest in botany led him to take part in a botanical excursion to Helgoland, Norway; when his report of the journey was published, the Swedish Academy of Science and Letters was so impressed that it promised to underwrite his future excursions. In 1820 Laestadius enrolled at the University of Uppsala, where he...