Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma
Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma
Stockholm is a jazzy, dashing and entirely delightful city complete with castles, museums and the romantic archipelago with its dizzying array of islands boasting an assortment of lighthouses and what seems like a million cozy red cottages. However, Sweden north of Stockholm is a treasure in itself and deserves closer inspection. Here among endless forests and vibrant meadows are hidden treasures that are the key to the heart of Sweden’s history.
In a province called Gastrikland lies Årsunda Viking, a farm created with inspiration from local Viking settlements. Swords, iron implements, jewelry, cook pots and other items have been found at the site on which 90 Viking graves have been discovered. The area dates back over a thousand years and the farm has been created with authenticity in mind. Here visitors can time travel to discover, as well as experience, how Vikings really lived.
A dwelling called a “longhouse” was the home for families or welcomed travelers. Wooden benches padded with sheepskin served a dual purpose, as seating during the day and as beds at night. In the center of the structure burned a fire with smoke curling up through a hole in the roof. This fire was used to warm the house as well as to cook. The interior of the building was saturated with smoke, lending an exotic woody scent to the rough-hewn lumber. While a two-flamed ceramic fat lamp flickered overhead, a young “Viking” showed us a collection of authentic Viking coins. As I turned them over in my hand I thought of the person who had them jangling in their purse. Since the barter method was more prevalent in those times it had to be a person of means who possessed the silver.
Årsunda boasts a Viking runestone. Garrison Keillor, in his sharply witty piece of fiction “Lake Wobegon Days,” tells about the “Lake Wobegon runestone,” which read, “8 of us stopped & stayed awhile to visit & have coffee & a short nap. Sorry you weren’t here. Well, that’s about it for now.” This, according to the Årsunda guide, wasn’t far off. He said that the Viking runestones were chronicles of accomplishments, tributes to people or tales of adventures.
Part of the Viking experience is hunting with a bow and arrow, and Årsunda had a place where we could test our skills. I quickly discovered what the term “Can’t hit the broad side of a barn” means. My Cousin Birgitta’s arrow hit the edge of the target and Cousin Håkan’s landed within inches of the center. I missed the target and the barn completely while my arrow skidded off into the bushes. I told Birgitta that if we were Vikings she and I would be picking berries and making bread while Håkan would shoot moose and save us from becoming vegetarians.
Speaking of moose, Årsunda had an area where visitors could partake in preparing and eating food that resembled Viking fare. I passed on the moose and Birgitta and I chose to make something called Glödhoppa. We rolled a pre-prepared dough ball until it was thinner than a Viking coin, then placed it on a grate over an open fire. Our “Viking Cooking Coach” instructed us to flip it over with a flat wooden utensil after it bubbled on top. My Glödhoppa had a disturbing grate-like charcoal design and I began to wonder if I was going to fail at Viking 101. After the bread was sufficiently “charcoaled” we slathered it with melted garlic butter, then topped it with diced onions and shredded cheese. It was really quite good – charcoal taste and all. Birgitta and I ate our Glödhoppas on wooden plates while Håkan scooped up his moose and potatoes with a wooden spoon. It was as it should be.
Another opportunity to taste a bit of Swedish history came when Håkan treated me to a sail on the two-masted “Briggen Gerda.” The ship is a replica of its namesake which was a merchant ship built in 1869. Gerda I was sunk in the Gävle harbor after being stripped because it was deemed irreparable. The hand-built replica took close to eight years to build. Gerda II is equipped with fifteen sails and, with all sails flying, the measurement is 625 square meters (about 2,000 square feet).
Hull speed for the ship is about seven knots, but on the day we sailed the ship traveled at around four knots. Intrepid sailors can get a sampling of Gerda’s strength during two- and four-hour excursions through the Baltic Sea. For four hours we sailed aboard the Gerda past glacier-smoothed rocks and islands peppered with red cottages and fir forests. Having been born into a sailing family I thought it would be a bit routine, but I had experienced nothing like the exhilarating feeling of riding the waves in a powerful ship with two thousand square feet of sail. I chose the bow as an anchor point for my journey where the Baltic winds scented my hair, which was wildly flipping around as Gerda’s bow sank and rose in the waves.
Gastrikland province has many preserved wooden homes that date back as early as the 1300s. These red houses are Sweden’s signature and she signs her name with flair. The houses are colored with a paint called “Falun Red,” a hearty hue laced with copper from the Falun copper mines. The paint was considered to be a sign of wealth. A collection of the red-hued homes, Koversta Gammelby, is located in the small community of Österfärnebo. These particular houses date to the 1700s and are furnished with period antiques and wall-sized oil paintings on canvas. Another preserved community is in Gävle’s Valbo parish, where my ancestors lived. This community boasts a school, blacksmith shop and several barns and houses – all painted in the rich Falun Red (Falun Rödfärg) hue.
I don’t have to look very far from “home” to find a preserved structure painted Falun Rödfärg. At my Cousin Håkan’s “Tomtas” farm, there is an ancestral homestead built over 200 years ago. It is still used on special occasions or on those eternal summer evenings. Tomtas lies nestled in the fir and birch forested Valbo parish of Gävle where, in the summer, the sky is sapphire blue and during summer evenings white mists envelope vibrant green fields.
The farmhouse is host to antiques, which are remnants of the lives of our ancestors. On a brittle volume of the doctrines of Martin Luther are scrawled the curled and faded signatures of our ancestors. Undated wooden milk strainers and butter presses lie sequestered in a cupboard and a clothing smoother dated 1706 looks ready for use. The memories of these strong and sturdy people who churned butter, pressed their clothes with wooden dowels and painted their houses Falun Rödfärg live on in the musty scented houses not only in Tomtas but also throughout the beautiful country called Sverige.
Sweden Travel Web Sites
Årsunda Viking
Briggen Gerda
Gastrikland
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