|
| |
|
Storuman Sorsele Arvidsjaur and the Arctic Circle
|
| |
|
|
| |
| Travelling on the Inlandsbanan, you may well spend the night at
STORUMAN , five hours north of Östersund and ten hours from Gällivare.
The tourist office (mid-June to mid-Aug Mon-Fri 9am-8pm, Sat & Sun
11am-5pm; rest of year Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; tel 0951/105 00, entrelappland@swipnet.se
) is just to the right of the train station, and will give you details
of the excellent mountain hiking to be had around the town. There's a
hostel in the same building as the tourist office (tel 0951/777 00;
£5-10/$8-16). SORSELE is the next major stop on the Inlandsbanan, a pint-sized
town that became a cause célèbre among conservationists in Sweden,
pushing the government to abandon its plans to regulate the flow of the
River Vindel here by building a hydroelectric station. It remains wild,
untouched and seething with rapids, with a campsite on the river bank.
There's also a hostel (tel 0952/100 10; £5-10/$8-16), a small place open
from mid-June to August. ARVIDSJAUR contains Sweden's oldest surviving
Sami village, dating from the late eighteenth century, a huddle of
houses that was once the centre of a great winter market. They were not
meant to be permanent homes, but rather a meeting place during festivals,
and the last weekend in August is still taken up by a great celebratory
shindig. There's a cosy private hostel at Västra Skolgatan 9 (tel
0960/124 13; £5-10/$8-16), and Camp Gielas , beside one of the lakes 1km
south of the station, has cabins from 375kr. A couple of hours north of
Arvidsjaur the Inlandsbanan finally crosses the Arctic Circle ,
signalled by a bout of whistle-blowing as the train pulls up. Painted
white rocks curve away over the hilly ground, a crude but popular
representation of the Circle. |
| |
|
