Sailing to Skuleskogen: the National Park between land and sea

One of the best green breaks, in your cruise discovering the High Coast, is a visit to the National Park of Skuleskogen.

The National Park designation is the best a nature area can receive, as well as unique locations of outstanding natural beauty which ensure that nature can be fully experienced.

Skuleskogen is close to Docksta Havet Base Camp so - by bus, or walking/biking from the piers - it's a fantastic destination after your days of serious sailing around the coast!
 

Suggestions for cruising in the High Coast:
Sailing to Skuleskogen National Park to enjoy its stunning natural beauty

Sights:

• The views over undulating forest and the sea.

• Slåttdalsskreven.

• The Kalottbergen mountains and their forested peaks and bare slopes.

• The flora.

• The Bronze Age barrows.

Area: 2,360 hectares. 
Established: 1984, extended 1989. 
 

Location: Approximately 40 kilometres south of Örnsköldsvik in Örnsköldsvik and Kramfors municipalities, Västernorrland County.

Visiting Skuleskogen: Signs on European Highway E4 show the way to the national park. There is an access road from the south via Käl, and from the north via Näske. The High Coast Visitor's Center (Naturum Höga Kusten) provides an introduction to the park´s human and natural history. There are 30 kilometres of hiking trails, as well as three sleeping cabins and two shelters that are open year around.

Skuleskogen National Park is a wild and majestic section of Ångermanland’s “High Coast”, where the rolling hills of the Norrland forest meet the northern Baltic Sea. This roadless wilderness offers the visitor magnificent views over sea and forest, beautiful lakes, verdant spruce-clad valleys, and fascinating geological formations which, more clearly than anywhere else, demonstrate how much of modern Sweden has risen from the ancient sea.

This national park is a heavily undulating rift valley adjoining the coast, featuring forest and outcrops of flat bedrock, in untouched condition where vegetation and animals have been able to develop freely. This area will offer the visitor the opportunity of enjoying fabulous experiences of unspoilt nature. Features especially worth seeing are Slåttdalsskreven, a gorge, 200m long, 40m deep and 7 metres wide, the bronze age cairn, extensive shingle fields, interesting vegetation and, not least, magnificent views of the archipelago. There is a total of thirty kms of marked trails which offer the hiker several alternative circular routes. The High Coast trail crosses the national park. Overnight cabins are located at Skrattaborrtjärn, Lillruten, Tärnättvattnet and Näskebodarna. (Font: www.y.lst.se)

HIGH COAST SAILOR'S TIPS:

Sailing to the heart of the World Heritage: experience Skuleberget and Skuleskogen National Park >

Skuleskogen National Park (1984) and Nordingrå Nature Conservation Area (1983) are classified Category V - Protected Landscape/Seascape: protected area managed mainly for landscape/seascape conservation and recreation - and defined as "Area of land, with coast and sea as appropriate, where the interaction of people and nature over time has produced an area of distinct character with significant aesthetic, ecological and/or cultural value, and often with high biological diversity. Safeguarding the integrity of this traditional interaction is vital to the protection, maintenance and evolution of such an area."

The purpose of Skuleskogen National Park is to preserve in unspoiled condition a coastal landscape of forest, rocky terrain, fissure valleys and steep rolling hills where plant and animal life may develop naturally. (Font: www.naturvardsverket.se)

Skuleskogen is a stupendous area. It combines high mountains, ancient forest and sea coast in a landscape which is without equal in Sweden. Pronounced peaks covered with windswept rocky pine forest are divided by deep rift valleys sculpted by the sea and the inland ice.

There are, in spite of the deserted appearance, traces of human habitation. The oldest of these are Bronze Age burial cairns. The inland ice was unusually heavy here, and pressed the mountains down under sea level. The country has been rising from the sea ever since, to reach today's level of almost 300 metres above sea level. There are also bare boulder fields, swamps and tarns in the park.

The fertile stream valleys are home to many species of bird, such as the very rare grey-headed woodpecker. Several Swedish plants have their most northerly limit in Skuleskogen, for example the decidious trees maple, lime and hazel. The trees are probably relics from warmer ages when deciduous forest was found this far north.

The foremost sights of Skuleskogen are the views of the rolling forest and the sea, Slåttdalsskrevan ravine, Kalottberget mountain with its forested top and treeless slopes, the flora and the Bronze Age burial cairns.

(Font: www.naturvardsverket.se and www.y.lst.se)

Free download the map of the Skuleskogen National Park (.pdf) >

Your boat safely moored to start exploring Skuleskogen and Skuleberget

The Sailor’s Base Camp in the heart of the High Coast >

Höga Kusten: the world's highest uplift of land

Sweden was entirely covered by inland ice around 20,000 years ago. The High Coast was the area where the land surface was pressed down the most by the vast, three-kilometre wide glaciers.

From Riksantikvarieämbetet (The National Heritage Board), the agency of the Swedish government that is responsible for heritage and historic environment issues, here below is a complete description of the isostatic uplift that was the key reason for the designation of the High Coast as a UNESCO's World Heritage Site:

The High Coast has the highest uplift of land in the world after a period of inland ice.

The land arose from the sea after the ice melted 9,600 years ago. Gradually, plants and animals inhabited it. Humans settled the area and made an impact as well. The serene and peculiar landscape features sweeping mountain lines, steep cliffs over the sea and creeks that meander between the islands.

Sweden was entirely covered by inland ice around 20,000 years ago. The High Coast was the area where the land surface was pressed down the most by the vast, three-kilometre wide glaciers. As the ice began to melt, the land began to rebound, and return to its original position. That is the basic explanation of the nearly 800-metres land rise after the peak of the latest Ice Age, called Weichel.

The area is a unique example of how geological forces have drastically altered a landscape in a relatively short period of time. Special phenomena are hemispheric hills with moraines and caps of woods marking the highest shoreline, 286 metres above present sea level. There are also offshore banks reaching up to 260-metres.

There is a varying plant- and animal life on the land and in the water. For example, there are different forest types, different types of coniferous clumps and rare deciduous trees such as hazel, lime and elm. On the cliffs toward the north, you can find exotic alpine species such as the tufted saxifrage, alpine clubmoss, alpine lady's mantle and the three-leafed rush as well as the unusual plant "strandtraven," which only exists on the High Coast.

The relatively quick land uplift has affected the conditions for human life along the shoreline. There are remains of human settlements and continual human activity during a period of 7,000 years, within a distance of 3 kilometres from the present-day shoreline. The shorelines of different eras contain remains of dwelling-places and human traps from the Stone Age, Bronze Age cairns and burial mounds from the Iron Age, as well as piers and house foundations from previous millennium.

The High Coast was inscribed on the World Heritage list in the year 2000. The motivation of the World Heritage Committee: "The site is one of the places in the world that is experiencing isostatic uplift as a result of deglaciation. Isostatic rebound is well-illustrated and the distinctiveness of the site is the extent of the total isostatic uplift which, at 294m, exceeds others. The site is the "type area" for research on isostacy, the phenomenon having been first recognised and studied there." (Font: Riksantikvarieämbetet - More info here)
Photo on the left: Västernorrlands Länsstyrelsen ©

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