Category: Sweden
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Freedom to Roam: Lessons from Sweden
Back home on my own patch, though I still feel justified in milking our recent sojourn in Sweden for another post. In 1706 Kräkmyren was dammed to divert its water to the Falun Mine. Sweden was then at war with Russia, and Russian prisoners of war are said to have built the earthbank. Over the…
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Where the Rogsån Meets Varpan
The RogsÃ¥n river slips quietly into the northern end of Lake Varpan, where the small settlement of ÖsterÃ¥ rests. Today it seems peaceful, but in earlier centuries this was a centre of roaring furnaces and hammering waterwheels. From the 1400s until the mid-1800s, copper smelters lined these shores, owned by miners tied to the vast…
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The Silence of the Ski Jumps
The ski jumps tower over Falun, stark against an empty arena bare of snow. Without the clamour of spectators they seem even more imposing, a reminder of the engineering that went into their creation. Every summer, rain gnaws at the slopes, an annual battle with erosion. Falun’s twin hills—the Normal (K90) and the Large Hill…
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Beneath the Blue Sky of Falun
A family visit to Falun in Sweden. Today the skies are clear, but three centuries ago the air here was so thick with smoke and fumes that the heavens were rarely seen. When Carl Linnaeus travelled through Dalarna in the summer of 1734, he wrote of Falun’s air as foul and suffocating. It was then…
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Finnhamn
It occurred to me that I haven’t posted any international photos. I’ve just stuck to the British Isles which of course includes Ireland. So to rectify that little oversight, here’s one from our visit in 2006 to the Stockholm archipelago, a myriad islands hugging the western edge of the Baltic Sea. In fact, there are…