Fulufjället National Park

This section is devoted to the experiences and adventures of visitors in the PAN Parks. Reporter Rutger van den Hoofdakker,who visited the area on request of WWF Netherlands to write for the Dutch Panda magazine, tells about his visit in the Fulufjället National Park, which gave him “an impression of a bewitching landscape.”

We drive to Fulufjället by car. On the way, Staffan Ericsson, visitors’ centre manager, points out places where elk can often be seen. Lynx also live here and sometimes a wolf is spotted passing through. The Fulufjället mountain range comes into view with its steep slopes rising about 400 meters over the valley. There are no sharp peaks; the mountaintop is an impressive plateau, 35 km long and 15 km wide. In the valley Staffan shows me a tree: “This is a remembrance tree”, he explains. “It used to be a custom to carve a tree to commemorate a person or an event. A father carved this tree in 1725 after his son had waded unharmed through high water. You can still see the carving.”

We stop in the visitors’ centre car park. Sandstone is used here for all types of construction, such as the paths. It doesn’t have to come far because the mountain - ‘fjäll’ in Swedish - in Fulufjället is entirely sandstone, which marks it out from
other mountains in Sweden. Inside the visitors’ centre, Staffan explains further, “Another unique thing about Fulufjället is that the mountains are covered with thick layers of moss. That’s because the area hasn’t been grazed by reindeer for the last 150 years. And we’ve got brown bears and elk. It’s no wonder that this beautiful area has been chosen as a PAN Park.”

Fulufjället is not overwhelmed by tourists and the park’s managers want to keep it that way. “The idea isn’t to have hundreds of groups trekking through the wilderness every day,” says Staffan, “So the travel companies are tied to limits and it’s prohibited to fly over the area in a helicopter. We want to have quiet here.” This makes Fulufjället an ideal holiday location for lovers of quiet and unspoiled nature.

I can soon get a personal experience of what this quiet and peace means. I walk in the direction of Njupeskjär, the highest waterfall in Sweden, dropping 96 meters. My eyes take in small, crystal clear lakes and centuries’ old pine trees. Suddenly I’m face to face with the waterfall, plunging down with immense force from the steep rocks. Curious about the view from the plateau, I climb the trail. The higher I go, the more beautiful the view becomes. The valley lies far beneath me, the forest I was so lyrical about just now, with another mountain range on the horizon. On top I am alone, surrounded by rocks and vast, green carpets of moss that feels unbelievably soft to the touch.

On my last day in Fulufjället I visit the forest museum. This is an open-air museum that houses the old cabins in which the lumberjacks of days gone by ate and slept. After 1960 the axe was replaced by the chainsaw and now local people are busy making the switch from hunting, fishing and logging tradition to nature conservation and sustainable tourism. I recall the words of Staffan Ericsson: “Now that nature takes care of extra income, most of the locals are enthusiastic. So are the visitors.”

Based on an article by Rutger van den Hoofdakker