Ted Logart

A quiet sigh Theodor Ringborg hangs up his phone, and perhaps I hear a quiet sigh. He has just spoken to a journalist wanting to know “when he will put his shovel in the ground [referring to Konsthall...

On a Tuesday evening in June, I turn off route E45 just south of Avaviken. A short gravel road leads to a parking lot I have long intended to park in. I grab my rucksack and hike the steep path up to ...

There are so many things involved in mountain fishing. If you interview mountain fishers, they speak of friendship, nature and tranquillity. Only rarely do they approach the heart of the matter: if th...

Sauna Academy “In sauna there is truth”, at least that is what the Swedish Sauna Academy claims with its slogan: In sauna veritas. But if you grew up with sauna talk at home as well as at the public b...

No one knows exactly when the island Malören rose from the sea. Given the speed of post-glacial rebound in the Bothnian Bay archipelago, it should have been a thousand years ago, give and take a few h...

On February 2, 1925, the Norwegian Gunnar Kaasen entered the town Nome as a hero with his dog sled team and his lead dog Balto. He delivers ten kilos of vaccine to a town affected by the deadly epidem...

On a beautiful Tuesday night, we take the chairlift from the village of Abisko towards the top of mount Njullá. It’s cold and crisp, the full moon is out, and the stars are abundant. We see a faint gr...

Kaamos If you translate it directly, Kaamos means – darkness. But those who live in the polar regions know that’s not the case. It’s how the snow magically reflects blue light; Kaamos is the word used...

A steady, refreshing breeze blows through the forest at Arctic Retreat. Sometimes the wind grabs hold of the trees around the log cabin, where I am staying. The trees sway gently in time with Nature. ...

There are many talented guides and operators offering tours where you get to take photos of the northern lights. Peter Rosén, Chad and Linnea Blakely, both in Abisko, and Sámi photographers Ylva Sarri...

Hiking is quite simple. Step one: pick a trail. Step two: Head out. Step three: Enjoy! If you go on a day hike, you hardly need more than nice hiking boots, a small backpack and snacks. Preferably a ...

Mikael Vinka has a passion for the history of his ancestors. Even as a child the older generation saw that he loved listening to the tales they told and that he would pass on the stories and the knowl...

Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) The reindeer is a species of deer and very common in the north of Sweden. It roams the forest in herds and days are mostly spent eating, exclusively vegetarian food. In wi...

– One hundred seventeen, one hundred twenty-two, one hundred twenty-nine… Ronny Landin and Erling Holmström are scrolling through the last fishes registered by the camera in the Kalix River’s fish-pat...

Nalovardo, June, at the peak. Without stopping at the turning area by the top cabin, I pedal on along the road that leads to the peak cairn: a kind of mountain stage, or Strava segment, that I have ma...

Lenin was here. And then he went home and started a revolution. There is a blue plaque in the waiting room at Haparanda train station that tells us how Lenin, the old comrade, stopped here in Haparand...

The Byske river is a formidable fly fishing river. Just consider the fact that the river has an impressive drop of 38 metres in the last 11 kilometres before reaching the sea — and one fishing licence...

In the old days, you could be arrested for loitering. Ambling along in the world without plans was seen as very suspicious behaviour. These days it’s different, and spending a day doing nothing is mor...

In Swedish Lapland, we have a preference for honestly cooked food, a natural result of having a clean nature filled with excellent ingredients just around the corner. The Sámi began developing our cui...

My first contact with ecotourism was during a visit to Geunja the Sámi Eco Lodge. It is located beyond the end of the road, in the beautiful mountain landscape that surrounds Ammarnäs. Something happe...

Sweden’s most famous hiking trail, Kungsleden, initially went from A to A. From Abisko to Ammarnäs, or vice versa. It was not until 1975 that the trail was extended to go past the King’s fishing spot ...

Kaffeost In Tornedalen, the coffee cheese is called kahvijuusto, and in Swedish, we call it kaffeost. It could be a fresh cheese that in many ways resembles the Italian mozzarella. But in northern Swe...

On the other side of the lake, there’s a mountain wall looking like a gorilla seen from the side, overlooking the passage to Lake Lill-Tjulträsket, its eyebrows frowning deeply over the eyes. Had we a...

Red log cabins in a kind of organised chaos around one of northern Sweden’s most beautiful churches – this might not be a completely accurate picture of World Heritage Gammelstad, but that’s what it f...

For a long period, the wild salmon stocks in the Baltic Sea were under a lot of pressure. When things were at the worst, the Baltics were on the fringe of extinction in some rivers. For example, in th...

The coast up north is pretty remarkable, this much is true. It actually grows, year by year. It’s to do with the inland ice. Post-glacial land elevation is the academic name for it, and it means that ...

“Kukkola is a village in Karl Gustav’s parish in Haparanda municipality, next to the Torne River, just over ten kilometres north of Haparanda along Highway 99″, I read about Kukkola on Wikipedia. But ...

The facade of the farmhouse dairy is a plastered white. The front door is deep red with a stainless steel plate displaying the company name. Pär and Johanna live in the nearby house. They would have i...

The helicopter bringing us to the starting line of Arctic Circle Race carefully takes off from the gravel parking lot by the Silver Road, a couple of metres north of the Arctic Circle. The distance to...

You’ve got to expect the normal market knick-knacks, of course. There are the helium balloons, t-shirts with novelty prints and sweets that will make your blood sugar level hit the roof. But you’ll al...

On average it takes a professional swimmer about 20 seconds to swim the 25-metre lane surrounded by ice in central Skellefteå. We know this because professional winter swimming, in temperatures just a...

When Sabina and Pete’s car rolls into the driveway, Emma is already at work, harnessing the dogs that are coming on today’s tour. Sabina and Pete come from Manchester, England. They have travelled to ...

When extreme swimmer Christof Wandratsch became the first person to cross lake Boden and broke the world record across the English channel, he found himself looking for new challenges. He found winter...