I know I said no more waterfall but the Storfosen is the
largest by volume in Scandinavia and it was a mighty sight. I have now
travelled north above the 66 degree mark and now I’m officially in the Arctic Circle,
in Swedish Lapland. I spent the night in a town called Gullivare, which like
Kiruna owes its existence to large deposits of Iron Ore. The mine in Kiruna
just a few miles north is the largest deep Iron ore mine in the world, with
reserves that are as yet unknown and a purity of 60% this is also a very
profitable operation. Unfortunately the English tour had been cancelled due to
low numbers and as I did not speak Swedish I was refused permission, on safety
ground to join the Swedish language group. As you can imagine having come all
this way I was bitterly disappointed, but I’m a “Lee” and there is always a way!
I waited till about 10 minutes before the tour was due to go and made “friends”
with a very pleasant Swedish couple who were only too pleased to escort me down
the mine! His name, yep, “Stig”. We descended to level 540 metres below the
original surface about 350metres below today’s level. The mine produces some of
the most environmentally friendly ore in the world and as well as having a 60%
purity they have also developed a techniques that further concentrated the ore
into pellet form for export via train to Narvik some 120kms away in Norway. The
large miners hat is a buffet style help yourself to iron pellets. At the bottom
of the mine they are mining at 1345metres below the surface, the problem is
that the ore vein is at an angle and in the 1960’s they realized that the town
above was going to collapse into the mine so since then as the go deeper under
the town them move the buildings above to another location away from where they
will mine. In the panoramic view of the town nearly all the buildings in the
right two thirds of the picture will be moved! Oh! And railway and the lake,
which has already been dammed twice to stop flooding. The other interesting
thing about Kiruna is, it’s where the first space tourists will take off from
either later this year or next, but I don’t think that’s in my budget!
