Our canoe tour in Sweden's wild nature

We had been looking forward to this canoe tour for a long time, maybe also because it was the only thing we had booked in advance.

On July 17th, we traveled to Svanskog with Penelope, from where our canoe tour would start the next day. We were given two 60 l barrels that we could fill with our equipment. So we packed our tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, stove, food, and clothes into the barrels. This tour should also be a test for our equipment for the treks in South America. In the evening, there was a briefing of the tour with Bettina from the rental company. Ahead of us were 60 kilometers to be paddled in the next five days, with four portages.

The dream of catching a fish, gutting it with the Swiss pocket knife, and cooking it fresh on the fire still didn't let go of Silvio, so he decided to rent fishing equipment on Thursday morning. The half-hour introduction to fishing and how everything worked was, we believe, included for free out of passion. We were ready to start shortly after ten in the morning and rolled the canoe, which was on a canoe cart, with our luggage inside about 500 meters to our starting point. That's when we set sail and Silvio cast his fishing line. Not even five minutes later, the long-awaited dream came true for some and turned into a nightmare for others... Silvio had a perch about 50 cm long on his line. We landed ashore and Carla let him deal with the matter himself, as the disgust was too strong. Once the fish was in the bag, our journey continued across the first lake. At the end of the first lake, there was a public bathing area. As everything is very dry in Sweden at the moment, it is only allowed to make a fire at public fireplaces. Silvio gutted his fish (thanks to YouTube) and then enjoyed grilling it over the fire.
Our tour continued through smaller canals, passing beautiful Swedish houses. A dream to have such a vacation home. At a church community house, we even managed to grab a fresh waffle along the way. In the evening, we docked at a lonely island on the second lake. The evening sun warmed us wonderfully, and we enjoyed a wonderful skinny dip in the lake.

The next day, our journey continued. This second day was characterized by portages and endless canals fenced in by dense reeds. We didn't see any shores the whole day. At the beginning, the river led us through shallow water, and we had to keep pushing or ducking because trees were lying across the river. This day somehow seemed never-ending. Left and right, all we saw the whole day was reeds. Unfortunately, it occasionally drizzled, and the mood was in the dumps. In the late afternoon, an open space at the edge of the forest suddenly appeared, free of reeds, where we quickly decided to set up our second overnight camp. After a strenuous day of paddling, the pasta in the evening tasted even more delicious. "A bed in the reeds, it's always free, because it's summer and what's the big deal, the mosquitoes are buzzing, and it smells like the lake... when we paddle."

The third day greeted us in the morning with typical Swedish weather. It goes like this: cloudy and a few drops in the morning, then it clears up and the sun laughs from the sky until the late afternoon, then clouds gather again before the sun gives full throttle in the evening. In Nysäter, we enjoyed a small snack and a Fanta from a supermarket. Then our journey continued. From now on, we found ourselves on a route where the Vikings used to pass through. Finally, we could see the bridge that led us to the last big lake. The landscape opened up again, and we could admire wonderful houses and the shoreline. At a swimming stop, we decided that we wanted to cover more kilometers today and that we might have some luck with the sauna that was recommended to us. We switched places, and now Silvio was in the front because apparently, you can distribute the strength better there, and Carla was now the helmswoman at the back. We paddled to the side branch where the sauna was located. Unfortunately, the sauna owner was not there, and even the numerous phone calls from a local resident who was determined to enable us to enjoy this sauna (did we look that exhausted?) were unsuccessful. So we lit a big fire and enjoyed potatoes and bratwurst. They looked like cervelats, but they are by no means comparable to our beloved Klöpfer.

On the fourth day of our tour, the weather was not on our side at all. Fortunately, there was a small shelter at our pitch, so we could at least have breakfast in the dry. Despite the weather, we left the sheltered side branch and paddled towards Säffle. Rain and headwind, thanks. So we started singing like the slaves used to do on their ships. "Lemon Tree, Beatles, House of Rocky-Tocky, and Christmas carols. Yes, Christmas carols! You can't imagine the power that a "snowflake, white skirt" can unleash. When we arrived in Säffle, we had to briefly leave the water one last time and carry the whole shebang across a road. But before we continued, we treated ourselves to a burger and something other than the filtered lake water to drink in the dry.
In the evening, about 3 km before our destination, we found a wonderful island covered in moss. We didn't have to think long, and our tent was ready for the last night in the wilderness. The Swedish weather wanted to make up with us again and gave us a wonderful sunny evening after a rainy day.

On our last day, the sky was blue again, and we could easily paddle the last kilometers. Our destination was the last boat dock in the Byvälen canal before heading out onto the vast Lake Vänern. If we didn't take this entrance, we would have been exposed to 80 km of open water. Vänern is the largest lake in Europe and seven times the size of Lake Constance! At our destination, we were picked up and taken back to Svanskog. We look back on five wonderful solitary days in Sweden's impressive nature and then looked forward to a proper shower and our sky bed in our bus.