The Rapa Valley valley in Sarek National Park is known for the abundance and
size of the moose.
Glacier Buttercup and Ptarmigan are both found on mountain summits.
The Ptarmigan is grey in summer and white in winter.
The Rapa Valley in February, Sarek National Park.
After summer in the high mountains, the reindeer herd is separated at
different winter foraging areas in the coniferous forest.
The mountain moor is in bloom in early summer.
High mountains, deep valleys
Sarek National Park
Landscape for Mankind
In the pink carpets of Trailing Azalea and Blue Heath
Sarek and Stora Sjöfallet/Stuor Muorkke National Parks became
a central part of the Laponian World Heritage Area when it was
formed in 1996. It has Sweden’s most dramatic alpine nature:
virgin forest with centuries-old pine and spruce, birch-forested valleys, delta land, mountain moors and alpine massifs with glaciers
and 2,000-metre summits. Deep valleys with mountain streams
are cutting through alpine areas. They are rounded U-shaped
valleys, chiselled out by moving ice masses in the ice ages. In the
valley depressions, there is a luxuriant abundance of Wolf’s Bane,
Globeflower and Alpine Blue Sow-Thistle - a haven for moose. A
kilometre from there, barren icy summits host Glacier Buttercup,
Snow Bunting and croaking Ptarmigan.
Sarek National Park takes its name from Sarektjåhkkå
mountain, 2 089 metres above sea level. Sarek is a dramatic
alpine landscape, cut through by deep valleys with mountain
birch forest and delta land. It has 200 mountain summits higher
than 1,800 metres and almost 100 glaciers. The park is known
for its wildlife. Here, bear, lynx and wolverine live side by side
with reindeer and moose that are the biggest in Sweden. Golden
Eagle, White-tailed Eagle and Gyrfalcon nest here and hunt in the
valleys. Willow Grouse and Ptarmigan spend the whole year here,
while Bluethroat, Dotterel, Golden Plover, Red-necked Phalarope
and Lapland Bunting are among the birds making their home in
the mountains in summer.
The Sámi have for thousands of years had the mountains as
their hunting grounds for wild reindeer and as foraging land for
their semi-domesticated reindeer herds. There are many Sámi
ancient remains. They are all protected by law. Both national
parks are important areas for reindeer herding, especially
in summer. There are settlements, migratory trails, calving
grounds, foraging areas and reindeer corrals. Four mountain
reindeer herding communities operate in the area - Tuorpun,
Jåhkågaska, Sirges and Unna-Cearus. It is important that
visitors use their judgment and do not disturb foraging
reindeer or the work with reindeer.
Some reindeer cows with their calves run off
Stora Sjöfallet/Stuor Muorkke National Park
Landscape of aeons
where wild reindeer hunters of times past dug their trapping pits.
Stora Sjöfallet/Stuor Muorkke National Park is a varied mountain
landscape featuring everything from virgin pine forest, mountain
birch forests and vast mountain moors to barren summits with
snowfields and glaciers. When the national park was designated,
its main attraction was a mighty waterfall. It is now dry because of
a hydropower project. The national park’s highest point, 2 015 m
asl, is the imposing mountain massif of Áhkká, with its 13 summits
and 10 glaciers. Stuor Muorkke is the Sámi name for the
national park.
The mountain range formed more than 400 million years ago,
when two land masses collided and the sea between them
disappeared. The seabed sediment was compressed into a mighty
mountain range, which was pressed up onto the older basement.
Over millions of years, and in particular under the weight of the
inland ice cap, it was worn down to today’s fells. A visit to a glacier
takes us back to an ice age landscape. Ice-ground rock slabs,
terminal moraine and delta land were left by the ice. However,
today’s glaciers are not remnants of the inland ice cap. They were
not formed until after the warm period of the Stone Age. Glaciers
are indicators of climate change and global warming is currently
causing them to shrink by ten metres a year.
Both Sarek and Stora Sjöfallet/Stuor Muorkke National Parks
have been impacted by hydropower project on the Luleälven
River. By the 30-metre damming of the Suorva Reservoir, and
the construction of Vietas and Ritsem power plants, the Stora
Lule River changed completely within Stora Sjöfallet/Stuor
Muorkke National Park. The hydropower area has therefore
been excluded from both the national park and the World
Heritage listed area. Before the dam construction, the Suorva
Reservoir was a rich water area containing rivers, streams,
lakes and deltas. Hydropower has had a negative impact
on reindeer herding. Foraging lands have shrunk and it has
made reindeer migration and travel more difficult, especially
in winter.
tussocks of white Diapensia blooms stand out.
Some Long-tailed Skua hunt for lemmings on the moor.
I look down into the deep Áhusjgårsså Canyon,
once formed by meltwater from the inland ice cap.
The song of the black Ring Ouzel
and the mewing of the Rough-legged Buzzard waft up.
I have passed thousand-year-old Sámi hearths and storage pits,
where nomads in the past hid meat for forthcoming migrations.
The centuries and millennia merge with my own wanderings,
to the accompaniment of the fluting
of the Lapland Bunting and Golden Plover.
They will soon be caught – in modern-day reindeer corrals.
(Stora Sjöfallet/Stuor Muorkke National Park in June, on the way
to Betsávrre.)
Sarek rain for 48 hours.
The Rapa River is overflowing with grey meltwater.
The clouds part and glaciers appear through the mist.
Stones thudding on the river bed and a raven outside the tent.
Later we see them, two bull moose planning the rutting season.
They are rubbing off their horn-skin against the yellow birches,
unafraid of us and unaware of the faraway moose-hunting.
(Rapa Valley in Sarek National Park, September.)
Hydropower landscape