Head north out of the Swedish capital, Stockholm, and it won’t be long (about an hour and a half) before entering Norrland, the vast northern part of the country which, as you pass through it, can seem endless. . It’s also a place most Stockholmers would never dream of living in, despite the scorching real estate market and housing shortage in and around Stockholm that has put home ownership out of reach for many. Yet, just hours from the city, prices can be so low that a young family could get a spacious house and land without a mortgage. The further north you go, the more extreme it can get: Large old estates in tiny hamlets of the subarctic nature can cost well under $ 50,000.
This region of around 100,000 square miles, which extends beyond the Arctic Circle, makes up more than half of Sweden’s land mass, but is home to only 10% of its population. That’s a lot of long and lonely roads. It’s a 15-hour drive and 830-mile drive from Stockholm to Abisko National Park in the far north – often punctuated only by the occasional sighting of reindeer or moose. Or, if you know a Swedish person, a collection of weird place names marked on road signs across the countryside can also interrupt the trip. One town, Njutanger, initially seems to translate as “taking pleasure in regret and remorse”, although it turns out that “anger” here actually refers to a body of water. There are still others, like Gravbranna – “burning tomb”.
Norrland is one of the three historic “lands” of Sweden. It has no political status but it retains an important place in Swedish culture and identity, and evokes a strong set of associations. In the eye of the collective mind, it is a secluded and desolate place, with only a few points of interest amid miles and miles of monotonous pine and birch forest.
The notion of decamping to the Arctic and buying a dream home struck me as a romantic and even liberating notion, especially for those who can work from anywhere, as many locals can today. cities like Stockholm. This raised the question: why aren’t more people moving?
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What better place to head first than the small town of Laxsjo (it means “salmon lake”, although there is no salmon), halfway up and inland, no far from the Norwegian border – literally in the middle of nowhere. It is beautifully located along a lake, with a cluster of houses along a main road, as well as a school, gas station, and grocery store. It was this grocery store, whose owners were looking to get out, that drew Calle and Barbro Moback from their Stockholm spot to the wilderness last year.
“The store was very sleepy before. They didn’t even have a lot of groceries. People weren’t happy. Now people like us come from the surrounding villages; they think it’s funny, ”said Mr Moback, a tall, tattooed man who speaks English with a hint of British accent. They have become known in the area for their high quality take-out lunch boxes.
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“We have a beautiful house and we love the people and the pace of life,” Ms. Moback said. “You don’t have to stress yourself out. Except we’ve been so busy since we opened so I’m a bit in shock. We thought we would have some free time. Yes indeed. “
The locals here not only rejoice in having a real winter with guaranteed snow, but also a fifth season, which they call spring-winter. “When the sun heats things up but there’s still snow and it’s cold at night. It is very pleasant to go out with snowmobiles and fish etc. This is the best season. And it’s getting lighter, ”said Moback. He joked that in Stockholm there are only two seasons: “hot rainy weather and cold rainy weather”. But what about dark winters? “For me that’s not a problem,” he says. “I don’t care if it’s light for seven or three hours when I’m working because it’s the same; I work during the day anyway. “
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They tell me that there are no houses available in Laxsjo at the moment (the house they live in was already in the family), but when there are, the prices are very good. A neighbor’s house, a 1,000 square foot property, was purchased for an incredible amount of $ 17,000 five years ago. The largest house in the village, a massive 4,300 square foot two-story house, cost less than $ 100,000. Still, they say it’s rare to see someone move here who has no family connection to the area.
From Laxsjo I continued north, about six hours’ drive, to Norrbotten, the northernmost and largest county in Sweden (roughly the size of Austria). The spring-winter weather melted ice and snow. This made the drive interesting, especially when one of the hundreds of trucks loaded with lumber sprayed the car in a hair-raising, momentarily blinding ice bath. The best parts of the ride were on the back roads, where I didn’t see another car or anyone for miles. The air seemed to be the purest, purest air you could breathe. At one point there was a quaint and quite quiet village with an icy river running through it. A full moon rose above the pines, just as the sunset began to cast the sky in soft pinks and blues. A black ripa, or capercaillie, one of the largest birds in the area, crossed the road and landed high in a tree.
Pitea is an industrial town of about 25,000 inhabitants on the coast of Norrbotten. It’s an industrial city, and the road is lined with freight trains laden with logs, towering factory complexes, and trucks going in all directions. The stationery dominates the horizon. In many ways it is a typical town in northern Sweden, austere and harsh and calm in winter. And yet spending time here comes with surprises. In the small town center, a new high-rise hotel called Kust looks like something out of a much bigger city and has a famous restaurant and rooftop bar. Pitea is also home to the highly regarded Academy of Music. The adjacent Studio Acusticum concert hall is famous for its state-of-the-art organ, built at a cost of over $ 5 million. It has a chamber orchestra and an opera house.
Johanna Brandstrom grew up in Pitea but moved to Stockholm with most of her friends upon graduation. It was when she had children that she began to think about returning. She eventually bought a 2,700 square foot home in a quiet suburb, its wood siding painted in classic Swedish “Falun Red”, for around $ 150,000. In Stockholm, you would be hard pressed to find a studio in an unattractive suburb for this price.
Standing in her pleasant open kitchen, Ms Brandstrom, who used to be a hairdresser but now studies digital marketing at a school in Pitea, stressed that while life is very good here, people should be aware of the dark. “I think you can panic when you come here,” she said with a smile.
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