For me it’s not the warmth, that makes a Swedish summer, it’s the colours! Blue sky, green birch trees and meadows with yellow flowers – dry ones with dandelions or very wet ones with marsh-marigold – both are just beautiful.
| English | German |
|---|---|
| Dandelion | Löwenzahn |
| Marsh-marigold | Sumpfdotterblume |
I love the golden yellow blossoms of the marsh-marigold. They bloom and gleam all along the shallow shores of ponds, lakes and rivers. They love water.
Me too, I love water as well! But I like it less when it comes as rain. And this year’s May has been extremely wet, it rained many days. Beside of this the snow in the mountains is still melting and fills the rivers and streams with water. The result? High waters. And submarine marsh-marigold that I discovered at some places round the Innerviksfjärden.
| English | German |
|---|---|
| marsh-marigold | Sumpfdotterblume |
Believe it or not, it is possible to travel back in time, at least some weeks.
Here in Skelleftehamn near the coast the ice on the Baltic Sea, the river Skellefteälven and all lakes is gone and all birch trees are bedecked with green leaves.
Yesterday I had a gig in the Skidstugan Stenabäck – a small ski hut between Norsjö and Lycksele. On the way there I could see the birch trees being less and less green until they were leafless again. As I said – like travelling back in time. But I was even more fascinated by the fact, that parts of the lake Stor kvammarn were still covered with ice.
Just at the driveway to the ski hut some reindeers were hanging around. I saw them again several times this weekend. The group was easy to recognise because of the white reindeer with the pale pink horns.
I stayed over night and so I got the opportunity to make a picture of the incredible evening sky. It looked like clouds burning in slow motion.
Today I took a short tour by car with R. who drove along some forest roads nearby. We saw a young moose standing in the forest and just beside the road a Western capercaillie probably looking for a hen.
Then I took my own car and drove home, not the fast and boring main roads but the smaller ones. I saw four more moose on three different places. Five moose total – a new record, but there all were quite camera-shy, trotted away and hid in the dense forest – one even crossed a small river and even if I couldn’t see her anymore I could still hear her feet splashing through the water.
One photo through the windscreen – just for the records.
| English | German | Swedish |
|---|---|---|
| western capercaillie, wood grouse, heather cock | Auerhuhn/Auerhahn | tjäder |
Today I took a short tour from the small boat harbour Killingören, just 650 meters away from my house. After taking the Kejsar Ludvigs kanal – a small channel, that splits the peninsula Rönnskär – I headed to the small island Kalkgrundet, where I landed my kayak. In the shadow of the trees there’re still some patches of snow left – up to 30 centimetres. I guess it’s the leftovers of a huge snowdrift.
I walked round the island and saw a Canada goose swimming nearby. One more step and I saw another one fleeing from land to sea. It was really near but I didn’t see it before it fled. I took some photos and continued my walk. Then I saw the reason why the geese didn’t just swim away: They were nesting. Sorry, my geese, I didn’t know this. I took a very quick photo of the nest and continued walking round the small island. When I was round the corner I peeked back and could see the geese going on land again.
I continued my kayak tour to an old pier at the shore of Örviken. From the distance it looked quite stable, but when I came closer I could see that it was ruinous and many of the wooden logs wobbled in the tiny waves.
I crossed the Sörfjärden and entered the bay Kurjoviken. I could see the bright coloured blossoms of the marsh-marigold (Caltha palustris). I love these flowers and when I was home again two hours later I visited the place from land to make some photos. Here they are:
I have an “Ohrwurm” – an earworm: a piece of music that lingers in my mind. It’s a Swedish folksong based on a part of Johann Sebastian Bachs cantata “Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet”.
The text starts with “Nu grönskar det i dalens famn” which means “Now it flourishes in the valley’s arms”. And so it is: The birch trees in Skelleftehamn start to open their leaf buds and slowly, but surely nature becomes green again. And now – after much rain in the morning – even the sun came out. We had rain, now we need warmth and nature will explode. Sometimes spring in Northern Sweden is not a season but just a short switch from winter to summer.
Two weeks ago the sea between the island Storgrundet and the mainland was still partly ice covered. Today I paddled round Storgrundet and couldn’t discover any ice left. The view of the blue sea almost looked like spring, but it didn’t felt like spring at all, it was very windy and chilly. When I left the protected bay I tried to make some photos but soon gave up since I was blown back ashore faster than I could take my camera out of its pocket. I only made a selfie on which it’s quite visible that – measured by temperature – spring hasn’t come far yet.
At the outside of the island I didn’t had a chance to release the paddle for a photo, too high were the waves. I regretted soon that I paddled without spray deck, because some of the bigger waves made it into my kayak. The next photo I made in a sheltered bay, where the water finally was calm enough and I could empty my kayak with a sponge (it wasn’t so much water, that came in).
I had a look at “kanotudden” (literally: the canoe bay), a bay of the river Skellefteälven, where the ice is finally gone, too. Almost. There is some leftover ice, mostly crushed to small bits that were jingling and clanging with each arriving wave. But even the small bits were still solid enough to bear a wandering wagtail looking for food.
The canoe club, which is located at kanotudden still seems to be in hibernation, I’ll have to check later …
Valborgsmässoafton, that’s the Swedish name of the Walpurgis Night, which is celebrated on April 30, which is today (or has been 15 minutes before). A friend invited me to celebrate valborgsmässoafton with her family in Aspliden and I accepted gladly.
Beside of nice people to celebrate with you need three ingredients for a typical valborgsmässoafton:
In this case a so called “Smörgåstorta” – a sandwich cake which is a very popular dish for special days as today.
The bigger the better. It can be quite hard to light a bonfire, because the cut down trees, twigs and branches are mostly very cold and soaking wet.
While the first half of the day was sunny, clouds came in in the afternoon and round 8 o’clock we got our first snow shower. Last year it snowed as well.
Most Swedish people don’t think at all that chilly and snowy weather must be a part of the valborgsmässoafton, put it’s quite typical.
And just an off-topic photo from today. Three whooper swans that I saw today at the same place.
Day 31 – 38
Today when I look outside the window, I realised that winter finally has left Skelleftehamn. The patch of snow that I stood upon ten days ago to view the Northern Lights has melted away and some trees start to show their first little leaf buds.
Well – it looked different when I was in Solberget in Swedish Lapland two months ago, where a first aid course of the “Outdoorschule Süd” took place. The week was filled with many actions – both course units indoors and outdoors and leisure, too. If you are one of the course participant you will realise, that I left out quite much. That’s because I tried to keep the text very short – it’s more keyword style – and focus more on the photos.
Arrival day: an incredible starry night with even a bit of faint Northern Lights
Course unit outdoors, training recovery position (“Stabile Seitenlage”) – course unit indoors, training cardiopulmonary resuscitation (“Herz-Lungen-Wiederbelebung”) – and a beautiful coloured evening sky.
How to move injured people: a lot of teamwork is needed – frost patterns again – Lars, the Sámi, tells us about the reindeer herding
How to evacuate injured people from an observation tower – reindeer sledge ride. (No people were harmed)
Ski tour to Polcirceln, where we’ll stay to nights. I slept in my tent since the two cabins are really small.
A misty morning – another “real life case”: hypothermia – a beautiful dusk. (No people were harmed)
Ski tour back to Solberget – another fantastic dinner, this time: salmon.
The last day – many serious studies as: How many people fit into the igloo (Answer: all!) or who wins the snowball fight
Thank you, Angela and Stefan from the “Outdoorschule Süd” for a great week!
Winter may has gone, but still a lot of snow is left.
All streets in Skelleftehamn have been snow free for a while now, but you can still see the big snow piles from the winter. Some of them are still several meters high and they probably won’t be melted down before the end of May.
Yesterday I was invited by friends to join them in their stuga – their summer cottage – in Bygdeträsk. Some images from the way.
When I arrived at the summer cottage, the property looked like this:
In front the barbecue area and the grasslands, behind the birch trees the Sundet, part of the big lake Göksjön, still mostly ice covered, but you can see the first open patch, where a small stream enters the lake.
What a contrast – two days ago I skied through the snowy winter forest in Äkäslompolo in Finland, today I paddled on the Baltic sea under a blue sky with two friends and it almost felt like spring.
Hans, Stefan and I met at the pilot house, where the Baltic sea is completely free of ice. We paddled to the island Klubben and started to round it, but a thick layer of old ice still lay between Klubben and Bredskär.
So we turned left, and paddled along Bredskär and Norrskär.
On the outer side of Norrskär we went ashore and took a fika, a break with drink and food.
On the outer side the waves were a bit higher and sea spray splashed ashore.
The old ice has a fascinating structure, it’s like a mosaic of thin vertical sticks. If you smash it, it splinters into many pieces, but the sticks are quite stable.
After the break we continued our tour and paddled along the southeast peaks of the islands Storgrundet, Brambärsgrundet and Vorrgrundet. Here we had a bit more waves. More than twenty whooper swans rose when we came closer – a spring sign. But on the ice between Storgrundet and Brambärsgrundet people still stood on the ice, perhaps there were ice fishing.
Now we were on the way back and the waves got smaller again. The ice edge is quite fascinating. The ice itself is still quite thick but at the edge the underwater ice got a lot of holes and looks like a frozen sponge.
Three weeks ago I stood on the thick ice between the mainland and the island Bredskär and it was possible to go to the islands by snowmobile. Today we paddled through the open water, but on the remaining ice in the small boat harbour Tjuvkistan you could still see some snowmobile tracks and they were quite fresh.
Soon we arrived again at our starting point, a short but very pleasant tour. Thank you, Stefan and Hans!
They packed their car and I put the boat onto the small cart and started to go home, dragging the kayak behind. (Foto: Stefan)
The air was still cold – round +3 °C – but the sun already got a lot of power and it feels much warmer. On my way home I discovered another spring sign: The first blooming flower, a tussilago. Spring is here!
