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Riding
the
River©
Pic: Turistråd Värmlands
allan
rogers writes the
log of
a lazy VOYAGE
down a Swedish river
If
you want a quiet holiday that is also an adventure try floating
peacefully down the river Klarälven in the borderlands of
Sweden. There timber from the Norwegian forests floats down to
the saw mills in Lake Vanen.
It’s
the kind of holiday where you go with the flow at a top speed of
a mile and a half per hour. You can take a sixty mile journey
with plenty of time to keep a log of the voyage, in fact there
are lots of logs, for this aquatic experience you set sail on
them!
The
day after you assemble at Grunerud (journey’s end) you are
transported up stream to a riverside meadow at Bransäsäng
where you are introduced to a pile of large logs and the
mysteries of raft construction.
Fairly quickly you acquire a
knack with knots, using clove hitches and sheet bends learn to
lash a raft together. It’s got to be carefully
done since the logs will be in constant motion and the last
thing you want is for then come apart when you are dozing in
your tent.
Oh yes, you
have a tent on board. You make two rafts, each about ten foot
square and three layers of log thick, then they are lashed
together so that they float side by side and this gives you a
total area of about eighteen square metre. 
So you have the tent
on one and on the other you can read, lounge, fish, cook, spot
wild life and generally pretend you are Tom Sawyer or Nanook of
the North.
The
first place you pass,
or stop to explore is Dalby, which has a church with the tallest
wooden tower in Sweden,
then you come to Likenäs where
there’s a shop, a
bank and just in case you’ve forgotten the mosquito cream, a
dispensing chemist.
Branäsberget
hill slips away behind you. It’s 1860 feet above sea level and
in the winter a bustling winter sports centre but in late spring
all is quiet it’s relaxing, there’s time to think, there’s
even time to think about thinking. Here and there you see wild
roses by the river side and in the long Nordic twilight you can
watch fish jump in the calm water near the bank. Occasionally
you might spot an elk in the forest or a busy beaver, beavering
away at his dams and dens like an accomplished aquatic engineer,
so
don’t forget to bring the binoculars.
At
Ambjöry there are more shops and eventually you drift into
Stollet where there is a riverside camping site and the Church
of Norra Nye. It’s a slat clad timber church that was built in
1764 and there’s a painting of St
Olov from the 13th Century that’s a relic of pilgrimages to
Ninadros which is known
better today as Trondheim in Norway.
(Not
a lot of people know that, but it’s the kind of information
that helps you fill in your postcards at the local shop.)
The journey down stream takes five days and you make it
in company with floating timber from a far distant logging camp
up river. Occasionally you might be overtaken by brightly
coloured canoes but in the main there is peace,
just you, your friends enjoying the river with food and
drink as you go, and at times using punting poles or paddles to
navigate into the side and explore.
There
is no need to bring a tent with you as you can hire one along
with kitchen equipment, camping stove and sleeping bags.
Patrick - Trägårdh
You can
even buy a fishing license and a provision pack for the week,
though I think that half the fun and much of the economy is in
planning for the trip and stocking up at your local supermarket.
At
Ekshärad there’s another camping site and a chance to explore
a graveyard with two hundred iron crosses (dead interesting!)
The slat clad church dates from the seventeenth century.
There’s a post office to send all the cards you’ve written
on the voyage, if you found the time, a bank and yet another
dispensing chemist.
Soon
you are on to your last day’s meandering, the
brave will make the most of swimming in the cool pools and the
skilful, of fishing for the final meal.
At
journey’s end, five days after you started you say good bye to
the raft, you untie the ropes, set free the logs and they travel
on without you.
It
doesn’t have to be the end of your holiday as there’s a lot
to do in Värmlland.
Pic: Göran Assner
The
River Klarälven flows into Lake Vänen
where amid an archipelago of
twenty two thousand islands you can enjoy a veritable
‘Swedish Rhapsody’ of
fishing, sailing and windsurfing. You can even take a boat trip
over the massive lake, crossing on
the S/S
Poltsjärnan or travel on the M/S Ran from Arvik along the old
Viking route down the Glasfjord to Säffle.
Report
by Allan Rogers
Fact
File.
Rafting:
Vildmark I Värmland, http://www.vildmark.se/Index/
Article: Rafting on the
Klaralven by Nigel Tisdall
http://www.travelintelligence.net/wsd/articles/art_1490.html
Brochures:
Swedish Travel & Tourism Council,
Sweden House,
5 Upper Montague
St,
London W1H 2AG
Tel
020 7870 5600 OR FREEPHONE
00800 3080 3080
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