On Saturdays Kiruna airport is closed; Flemming and I used Saturday morning for refuelling. We had borrowed a couple of jerrycans from the flying club and bought fuel at the gas station. Thomas met us at the entrance, and he also came with 20 litres of MoGas for us. We had plenty of fuel! Thomas got us in, and helped with refuelling.
After refuelling, we said goodbye to Thomas – he was going flying somewhere in his sea plane. Flemming and I headed on the road for a day trip to Abisko national park.
The weather was really nice – warm and sunny, and the landscapes on our way were outstanding:
When we were planning the whole trip to Sweden, and talked about possibilities of going to Kiruna, I noticed a small town on a map, on the border with Norway, called Riksgränsen. The name means “the national border”! The town is one of the northernmost towns of Sweden, located 200 km north of the Arctic Circle. At that time we thought, if we’d get to Kiruna, we’d love to see that town. And now, we were driving towards it:
The road was rather narrow, and there were only few places where one could stop to appreciate the beauty of Swedish nature. In one of such places, we were lucky to come close to a mountain river:
Soon Riksgränsen welcomed us with its sport hotels:
Riksgränsen is a well-known skiing destination, with a skiing season from February till June, and from end of May the lifts are running under the midnight sun.
There is a railway station at Riksgränsen. The station opened in 1902 as part of the Norwegian Ofoten Line and Swedish Iron Ore Line, and was the location of the switching between Norway and Sweden. The station’s official inauguration took place in 1903 by King Oscar II, Crown Prince Gustaf, Prince Carl and Princess Ingeborg.
After a coffee break in ICA, local supermarket, we turned back to Abisko national park.
Flemming and I were looking for a place to go for a short swim. We thought it would be fun to swim in July with snow in the background! And shortly, there was a lagoon that looked suitable.
There was a camping site by that lake. People couldn’t believe their eyes when we changed to our swimwear, and walked towards the water – so they run after us to check whether we were kidding. We weren’t:
The air temperature was around +10+12 C, and the water was cold but extremely clear. In Lapland, you can drink water from any lake or river. I had a very short swim, but Flemming stayed longer:
Driving to Abisko, near the lake Torneträsk, we passed by a sign on the road informing about an old church and a graveyard, and we turned back. It showed up to be a very special place in the Swedish history of mining.
The iron ore from Kiruna mine had to be transported. There were only two ports relatively close by – Luleå in Sweden, and Narvik in Norway. A railway had to be built in order to transport the iron ore to those ports. The first section from Gällivare to Luleå was opened in 1888, and then gradually extended. From 1903 it was fully operating up to Narvik. The railway from Narvik to Luleå – The Ore Line – is a single track, and it is 473 kilometres long.
The place we were standing with Flemming at was Tornehamn (Torne harbour) by lake Torneträsk. From there, one could take a short hike along the supply road that had to be build before constructing the railway. Those who worked in construction were called navvies. Long sections of the supply road and a number of buildings have been preserved. Today it goes under the name the Navvy Road, and it is a 55 km hiking trail between Rombaksbotn in Norway and Abisko Östra in Sweden.
We walked the Navvy Road up to the Rallarkyrkogården – the Navvy cemetery, and back. It was a nice trail, with different buildings and ruins from that time. One of them was the church, always open:
The navvies on the Ore Line came from Sweden, Finland, and Norway. They worked in teams, and were paid a piece rate. The pay was shared equally in the navvy team, which included a cook. A day’s pay was from 10 to 12 SEK, and a normal working day was 10 hours. Since the navvies received a piece rate, they willingly did overtime. The navvies on the Ore Line earned roughly twice as much as other workers.
We walked there, on that rocky path, and imagined how hard it was to live and work in that particular mountain ridge and in such harsh climate:
In 1901, about 3,000 people made their living from railway construction along the Torneräsk – Riksgränsen stretch. About 2,500 men worked on the track and about 500 women worked as cooks or ran canteens. Many navvies had their wives and children with them. Daughters helped their mothers, whilst sons earned some money working for horse drivers. There were in all about 100 horses with drivers. The road up to Riksgränsen was very steep, but the horses managed to pull loads of tons.
The railway also opened up the Norrbotten county to tourism. At Katterjokk and beside Abiskojokk rivers, tourist facilities opened as early as 1902. The Ore Line was inaugurated in 1903 by King Oscar II – and by that time the navvy communities were already being abandoned, and camps demolished.
We made our way to the graveyard that was on a top of a rocky hill:
In the years 1898 – 1902, when the Ore Line between Kiruna and Riksgränsen was built, about 50 people were buried there. Most of them died in a typhus epidemic in 1901. Illnesses and accidents at work happened often. The living conditions were extremely primitive. Suicide was common; there was abundance of dynamite, and the navvies used it to end up their lives in some horrible ways. Today there are around 170 graves, 70 of them children.
It was a sad place, and it made a strong impression. None of those workers, their wives or kids was old enough to die:
Axel Magnus Granholm who worked there as an engineer on the construction of the Ore Line, is buried at the Rallarkyrkogården together with his wife. He was known to be a charismatic leader:
Rallarkyrkogården was also a very peaceful place. We had our lunch there at the cemetery, sitting on top the hill with the most magnificent views:
The forest was full of life, birds, plants, mosquitoes, flowers. We wondered how all that could grow and flourish on rocks:
We returned back to our car, and continued to Abisko. The scenic view one often sees on the postcards from the Abisko national park, called Lapporten or Tjuonavagge:
Kungsleden is a hiking trail of about 440 km long. We didn’t go all the way 🙂 just stayed close to the village of Abisko.
A beautiful walking path was made around the wild Abiskojåkka river and its dramatic waterfalls. The one on the photo below was man-made. A hole was blasted out by the railway workers to make a new water furrow through the bedrock, in order to avoid building a railway bridge across a roaring waterfall:
It was a breathtaking place, literally!
We came back to Kiruna, to our room in the Sami museum where we stayed:
Flemming prepared delicious dinner for us – a big local freshwater fish, baked in the oven, and veggies:
We talked about all those wonderful experiences and interesting learnings we had that day – stunning nature, swimming in a lake 200 km north of Arctic Circle, interesting history, workers of the Navvy Road, and welcoming people we met on our way… Next day we were going to leave Kiruna, and the weather was going to change to rainy. So we also discussed different scenarios for leaving or staying depending on how it would develop, and whether we could take-off during those short opening hours of the airport.