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Published: December 11th 2021
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Storforsen
Storforsen, or the Great Rapid, is not only the largest rapid in Sweden. It would rank pretty high on a list of the greatest rapids in Europe as well. Sweden's largest rapid, Sweden's largest ghost town, the world's highest wooden house and the world's largest cheese slicer
Something we learnt this summer while travelling in northern Sweden is that although there are plenty of rivers in this country there are not many waterfalls. Instead there are plenty of rapids, and they can be pretty spectacular too. We will start this blog entry by writing about the largest rapid in all of Sweden, Storforsen.
Storforsen Storforsen, or the Great Rapid, is not only the largest rapid in Sweden. It would rank pretty high on a list of the greatest rapids in Europe as well. The rapid is untouched by the hydro power industry, as is the entire Pite River which is the river that feeds Storforsen. But Storforsen has sort of been regulated by the logging industry when the river was used for transporting timber from the forests to the coast. To enable log driving on Pite River, the water flow was altered slightly leaving a strip that used to be part of the rapid dry.
Pine tar/Stockholm tar In the 17th and 18th centuries producing and exporting
Storforsen
The rapid is untouched by the hydro power industry pine tar was a big industry in Sweden. The pine tar was mainly produced in northern Sweden and in also what today in Finland. The tar was then brought to Stockholm where it was refined before it was exported. So much tar was exported from Stockholm that internationally pine tar was often called Stockholm tar.
We had no knowledge of this until about a year ago when we read an article about the Swedish pine tar industry. We have never heard about it in School and we have not learnt about this in other ways either. Now that we know that Sweden was a world leading producer of pine tar for a hundred years or so we have managed to dig up some tiny bits of information. We have found a plaque on Beckholmen in Stockholm, the island where the tar production was concentrated, mentioning it very briefly. We have also seen some tar production pits. It is likely that these tar production pits are reconstructed since the original ones most likely have not survived the 200 years or so that has passed since they were used last time.
Laver Ghost Town Laver
Storforsen
"The rapids stretch over a distance of 5 km in which it drops 82 meters" according to Wikipedia was a town that grew up around a mine in Norrbotten. The town was carefully planned and was labelled as a model town. Even internationally Laver received some attention thanks to the modern layout of the town. After a few years they realised that it was not possible to make Laver mine profitable and it was closed down. The town then became obsolete, as there was nothing else there to make people stay, and everybody who lived there moved. Most of the buildings were dismantled and Laver became a ghost town. Today there are only fundaments and a few walls left of the buildings that once stood in Laver. But it is easy to navigate in the ghost town because there are plenty of signs telling what function each building used to have.
Öjebyn Church Town Piteå In the
blog entry that covered the days we were in Luleå we wrote about Gammelstaden church town. That one is the largest and best preserved of the historical church towns that once existed in northern Sweden. When we were in Piteå town we decided that we wanted to see one more of the few church towns that still exist
A dry section of Storforsen
But Storforsen has sort of been regulated by the logging industry. The water flow has been altered slightly leaving a strip, that used to be part of the rapid, dry. today,
Öjebyn church town.
Not surprisingly it was very similar to Gammelstaden. Öjebyn was a bit smaller but we felt that it actually was a bit nicer and prettier than Gammelstaden.
One notable person,
Daniel Solander , came from Öjebyn. He was one of
Carl Linnaeus' students and he made important contributions to science by studying plant life in Australia and New Zealand.
Snipp Snapp Snorum Hej Bassalorum This is a child rhyme but is also the names of five historical settlements in Skellefteå Municipality. In the 19th century a land surveyor was given the task of naming these five settlements. He was in a playful mood that day and he simply named them after the child rhyme. Supposedly four of these five settlements are still in some kind of use. We managed to find two of them,
Hej and
Snapp. The settlements are so small that they don't show up on printed maps. We did try to find the others as well but eventually we had to give up.
For those of you who don't know Swedish: The word "Hej" means "Hi" or "Hello".
Boliden Boliden Giant's kettle
A giant's kettle in the dry strip is a small town which claim of fame is its gold mine, the only gold mine in Sweden actually.
Skellefteå Town We made a short stop in the town Skellefteå without knowing if there was anything at all there to see. We found that Skellefteå is a typical Swedish town with one atypical building under construction. It is a 20 stories high building constructed of wood. There are not many, if any, other wooden buildings in the world that high.
The largest cheese slicer in the world This is one of those things that are really silly but also a bit fun. In the village
Ånäset they have a sculpture of the largest cheese slicer in the world. A
cheese slicer is a kitchen tool designed primarily for cutting cheese.
The sculpture acts as a portal to Ostriket, a region where cheese making has long traditions.
So does the cheese slicer work? We don't know. Possibly they need to make the largest cheese in the world in order to test it.
Robertsfors Ironworks Robertsfors Ironworks was once the largest ironworks in Västerbotten District and
Tar production pits
In the 17th and 18th centuries producing and exporting pine tar was a big industry in Sweden. The tar was produced in tar production pits like this the major employer in the town Robertsfors. The ironworks was closed down in late 19th century and today the buildings are preserved for their historical value.
Myggvalla We have saved something a bit funny for last. In the small town Bureå we found a local sports ground named Myggvalla, which translates to Mosquito Field. Wonder if they have an insect problem there...
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Rainyb
Lorraine Brecht
I love ghost towns. There many here in my province because of abandoned rail lines.