Host family at Käringsjön. Photo: Naturcentrum AB.
Käringsjön
Käringsjön is located at the end of the last and stoniest road in Rogen Nature Reserve. The site has long played a major role for many people in the area around Rogen and Femundsmarka. Sami people settled at Käringsjön in the Rogen area at the end of the 18th century and called their village Fjällsjön. The lake was then renamed Käringsjön after an old woman (käring in Swedish) who had a fishing hut here sometime in the 18th century. She walked here from Tännäs, 17 kilometres away. It’s said that she knitted while she walked to make use of the time.
Another person who often walked the same long road was Pelle Wiberg. In the early 20th century, he kept a shop at Käringsjön and walked to Tännäs once a week to collect the post.
Pelle Wiberg and his wife remained here and were more or less self-sufficient. In late winter, they occasionally visited friends 40 kilometres away, and when the party was over they put on their skis and went home across the crusty snow. They came home at dawn, just in time to milk the cows.
A road to the farm was not constructed until 1965. Pelle Wiberg spent an entire summer building it. And it wasn’t until 2001, two days before Christmas Eve that electricity was installed. This was a wonderful Christmas present, but already on New Year’s Eve, there was a power cut. They were glad to have kept the old diesel generator as a back-up.
Pelle Wiberg’s grandson, Per-Roger Wiberg has taken over the farm at Käringsjön and also works as a warden in Rogen Nature Reserve. Per-Roger and his wife Kerstin also offer cottage accommodation and hire of canoes.