(Post and image provided by Lauren Hemmeke)
We arrived at Kolarbyn on Sunday afternoon and met Malin, who was our host! Malin gave us a tour of the Kolarbyn Eco-lodge site and told us a little bit about the history, which you can also read more about at their website, https://kolarbyn.se/en/. Kolarbyn means “coal village” in Swedish, and the camp is based on an old charcoal burning village where men would go into the forest for months at a time to make charcoal. Malin showed us the huts where we would be sleeping, how to chop firewood, where to wash our dishes and get water from the steam, and how to ask the forest lady for permission to collect water from the spring! She emphasized the importance of treating the earth well in everything that we do here and being mindful of how our actions are impacting nature.
After we finished our tour, it was time to make dinner. We had to chop our own firewood for the fire. We were provided with a variety of vegetables and ingredients for dinner, and we cooked our dinner over the fire that we made ourselves.
After dinner, some of us headed to the sauna, which was floating on the lake. Some people went in the lake, but the water was really cold. After the sauna, we had a campfire down by the lake. Sunset was at about 10pm, but it never got very dark out.