Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Svegs kyrka
From the station, your next port of call should be the parish church,
Svegs kyrka
, on
Vallarvägen. A church has stood on this spot since the latter part of the eleventh
century when Sveg was also the site of an ancient Viking
ting
, or parliament. In 1273 a
border treaty between Sweden and Norway was hammered out here, when the church
was part of the bishopric of Trondheim. Sadly, though, the glory days are long gone.
The present building dates only from 1847 and contains few of the fittings which once
made its predecessors so grand; it's predominantly the woven textiles inside that catch
the eye today.
The wooden bear
In front of the church, beside the main crossroads in town, looms the world's largest
wooden bear
, a mammoth and weirdly ominous structure reaching 13m in height; it's
meant as a reminder to passers-by that this is bear country - it's thought there are
around 1200 animals in Härjedalen and neighbouring Jämtland.
Kulturcentrum Mankell
Ljusnegatan 1 • Mon-Fri 9am-3.30pm • 40kr
Sveg's final attraction is the
Kulturcentrum Mankell
, opposite the bear inside the Folkets
Hus. Here you'll find a simple museum dedicated to Sveg's most famous son, Henning
Mankell, who's one of Sweden's best-known novelists, particularly for his
Wallander
crime novels (see p.183). Translated into everything from Faroese to Chinese, a
collection of Mankell's topics is available inside for persual.
8
The outskirts of Sveg
At the western end of Fjällvägen, a pleasant
walk
of twenty to thirty minutes takes you
across the road and train bridge on Brogatan to the riverbank, ideal for a picnic and a
bit of skinny-dipping. Once over the bridge, just beyond the point where the railway
line veers left and leaves the road, head right over a little stream into the forest, all the
time walking back towards the river's edge. Hidden from the road by the trees is a
wonderful sweet-smelling open flower meadow, but don't forget your mosquito
repellent - the countryside around Sveg is made up of vast tracts of uninhabited
marshland and countless small lakes, ideal breeding grounds for the insect. However,
Sveg has the surrounding swamps to thank for its livelihood; Härjedalen's biggest
factory, on the outskirts of town, turns the peat into heating pellets which are then
transported down the Inlandsbanan to Uppsala.
ARRIVAL AND INFORMATION
SVEG
By public transport
The train and bus stations are on
Järnvägsgatan.
Tourist o
ce
In the Folkets Hus building,
Ljusnegatan 1 (Mon-Fri 8am-4.30pm;
T
0680 107 75,
W
herjedalsporten.se). Has leaflets about local hiking
routes, useful for their maps even if you don't understand
Swedish; to get here from the train station, walk east along
Gränsgatan for around 10min.
SWEDEN'S BROWN BEARS
It's estimated there are currently over three thousand
brown bears
in Sweden, the highest
number since the 1800s, roaming across an area stretching from the far north as far south
as northern Värmland. Since the early 1940s it's been legal in Sweden to
hunt
bears every
autumn to keep the population in check and each year around 250 animals are culled.
Although it's rare to spot a bear in the wild, should you be hiking in an area where bears
are present, you're advised to whistle or talk loudly to alert the bear to your presence,
particularly in autumn when they are present in the forests gorging on wild berries ahead
of hibernation.
