I live close to the actual center of Sweden (i.e. in Jämtland). If you are in the western parts the mountains are there as a backdrop, in the rest of södra norrland ("south north land") there are more hills than mountains. The wildlife is there, but to tell the truth fairly seldom seen by most people. Moose are common to see, as are the birds. Wolves; only seen them in parks, seen tracks that might have been wolf, same for lynx. No wolverines here, I live too far to the east for them. Bears are no unusual here, but again I've only seen tracks and scat, not the actual animal.
Housing is fairly cheap (a liveable house with some work needed can be found for SEK 100-150k), but can be hard to find in the countryside. Expect to have to do some major work on the cheap ones. The reason for this is that there is not much money in selling them, and many of the ones slowly returning to nature is owned by the children of the now deceased last occupant, and it is easier to keep them as an occational potential summer cottage than doing anything with it or selling it. There are some pitfalls in buying a house, e.g. if the septic system is not up to current standard the county will eventually demand that you upgrade, which can cost SEK 80000 or more if you are unlucky. The phone company is taking out the copper in some regions, and mobile coverage is spotty or nonexistant in many places. You can get the idea of housing by looking at
http://hemnet.se, but you can often find cheaper prices on the bulletin board in the local grocery store (i.e. that is not sold by way of a realtor).
Now for the bad parts. It is pretty much all an economically depressed region, with high unemployment, an ageing population, impoverished local governments running schools and other basic services with very little money (some cities are the exception to this). The reason for this is that all the profits from the natural resources (hydroelectric and lumber) go outside the region, and only furnish a few jobs locally; until less than half a century ago there was de facto a colonial attitude to the north, which was seen as a source for natural resources and some tourism, but of no interest apart from that.
If you have kids they may have to walk up to 2 km to a school bus, and some schools are really, really cr*p at taking care of non-Swedish speakers (as in just dumping them in a regular class and giving them a few hours a week at most of extra tuition)
You really need to be able to communicate in Swedish to work in your trade (there are cources in Swedish as a Second Language offered, some are good, some are cr*p, but all take time and effort). English *may* suffice for a desk job in an office, but not for craftsmen or tradesmen.
This far south it is all settled country, not howling wilderness. As to distaces 30 km from the nearest willage with shops is easy (I have 8 to basic shopping, 25 to reasonable, 50 to decent shopping, 100 to an IKEA), but 30 km to the nearest house would be hard to accomplish here. Further north it could be done, but much trickier here in the woodlands.
There are logging roads in all the woods, and active logging and general forestry (i.e. if you don't own the woods around your house it migth turn in to a clearcut wastland next week). The kids run their dirt bikes in summer, and snowmobiles in winter. Mufflers on the engine is considered an unnessesary extra by most of them. Between early September and first real snow there is moose hunters in the woods, but they do not generally bother anyone. Good years a lot of (mostly Thai) berry pickers, generally getting paid squat for hard work. Hunting is of course all fairly tightly regulated, unless you own land you will have to lease hunting rights, and seasons. licences (etc) well regulated (basically all snaring is illegal, no hunting except with firearms, annual firearms proficiency tests for hunters, moose hunting is organized in "teams" of 10-30 hunters).
Climate: we had -35 C for a while last winter, both colder and warmer winter are not unheard of (typical winter day is -20 C or so), snow from November to March, few daylight hours in winter, few hours of darkness in summer. You need to clear the snow from your front door to a public road either yourself or pay someone with machinery to do it. Heating can cost a fair bit, we use 35 m^3 of firewood each winter, electricity is not cheap (it would cost SEK 3-4000/month to heat our house that way), and oil equally insanely priced.
It is a lovely part of the world to live in, but go here with open eyes. Visit, in all seasons, read up on the facts, and then make the jump.
