Ive wanted to organise a canoe trip to Sweden for a while but didnt fancy going to the well established canoeing lakes in the South. The location was chosen after seeing a glorius photo on a google image search which after closer inspection proved to be Sarek national park a mountain range north of the Arctic circle in Sweden.
Cut along story short the area isnt hugely popular with paddlers (in fact the people we spoke to had never herd of any English people doing trips at all) with maybe a few day hires a year but certainly no expeditions so sourcing canoes was difficult. We managed to arrange canoe hire from a incredibly friendly guy Matti (which In fairness was more like borrowing them off a mate than a business transaction!) whos main business is dog sled tours in the winter (http://www.jokkmokkguiderna.com/).
The route we planned started in Kvikkjokk and finished just to the west of Jokkmokk at about 110km long. This gave us 5 days of about 8 hours paddling and a short last day. The remoteness was apparently after only a short paddle throughout the whole trip we only saw 4 people and the only sign of life were the occasional hut and the dams and gubbins which occurred at the end of a few of the lakes.
The wild life was fantastic and we were treated to a rare and awe inspiring sighting. To see a Scandinavian brown bear in the wild was truly fantastic and whole unexpected (to put this into perspective Matti works in these areas all day nearly every day and has lived in the region for over 20 years and has never seen a bear in the wild and only twice from the car on the road). I spotted his withers through the trees and called to Stewart who was in front but he missed him looking for him we though he must have been spooked and gone deeper into the forrest but he appeared 200m down stream up on back legs air sniffing one of the greatest sights ive been privileged to see.
Other wildlife was varied from sand lizards to ospreys and lemming. I will try to get up a full write up on the blog in the near future but there are over 300 pics and work have me sailing on Sunday (boo hiss) Ill add to them as I can on the Bushcraft Navigation site.
Special thanks to my friend Torsten who was a great help in obtain the information needed in Sweden on my behalf
Cut along story short the area isnt hugely popular with paddlers (in fact the people we spoke to had never herd of any English people doing trips at all) with maybe a few day hires a year but certainly no expeditions so sourcing canoes was difficult. We managed to arrange canoe hire from a incredibly friendly guy Matti (which In fairness was more like borrowing them off a mate than a business transaction!) whos main business is dog sled tours in the winter (http://www.jokkmokkguiderna.com/).
The route we planned started in Kvikkjokk and finished just to the west of Jokkmokk at about 110km long. This gave us 5 days of about 8 hours paddling and a short last day. The remoteness was apparently after only a short paddle throughout the whole trip we only saw 4 people and the only sign of life were the occasional hut and the dams and gubbins which occurred at the end of a few of the lakes.
The wild life was fantastic and we were treated to a rare and awe inspiring sighting. To see a Scandinavian brown bear in the wild was truly fantastic and whole unexpected (to put this into perspective Matti works in these areas all day nearly every day and has lived in the region for over 20 years and has never seen a bear in the wild and only twice from the car on the road). I spotted his withers through the trees and called to Stewart who was in front but he missed him looking for him we though he must have been spooked and gone deeper into the forrest but he appeared 200m down stream up on back legs air sniffing one of the greatest sights ive been privileged to see.
Other wildlife was varied from sand lizards to ospreys and lemming. I will try to get up a full write up on the blog in the near future but there are over 300 pics and work have me sailing on Sunday (boo hiss) Ill add to them as I can on the Bushcraft Navigation site.
Special thanks to my friend Torsten who was a great help in obtain the information needed in Sweden on my behalf
