All this talk of parts of the ground under the town
collapsing is making Maisie’s head spin. She knows there’s no danger, and the
moving of the town will be slow, and long before any ground collapses, but
still. When you can hear the nightly blasting in the mine (01.23 hrs) you don’t
forget what’s underneath you.
‘Gruvstads Parken’ (‘The Mining Town’s Park’) is the area
nearest the mine which is about to be emptied of people. Over the years the
buildings will be demolished, or moved elsewhere, and the land will be a park.
Parts of it will be fenced off as the ground begins to shift, and more land in
the town will be absorbed into the park further away. That’s the plan. ‘A
Moving Oasis’ the sign calls it. ‘Sounds like a nice name for the town falling
into the pit,’ says Maisie.
It upsets Maisie a bit, but Jack’s more philosophical about
it. She wants to go and see the buildings, before they’re gone. Some of them
are already empty. It sounds a bit creepy to her, like a town in the wild west
after the shoot-out, the bar doors swinging in the wind. Jack says he isn’t
interested in a load of old buildings.
She takes her trusty Spark (that’s a kick sled for use on
snow). She could just as easily walk, but if she’s going to go nosing about she
thinks she’ll look more innocent with a Spark. Not that she’s planning on being
up to no good.
Actually it’s not easy to control the speed of the Spark
downhill, so she keeps her foot on the ground to slow herself down. She turns
down before the church, crosses the main road, and then turns left into the
old housing area and begins her walk towards the mine. These houses are brick
built – must have been quite posh when they were built, probably in the 1920s
or 30s. Others are all wood. Many of them have two or even four entrances, as
they would have been lived in by more than one family, or a family with
lodgers. Some wooden buildings are quite grand.
In the near distance she can see and hear the mine. This
area is not yet inside the ‘park’ area, but, she muses, it’s only a matter of
time. As she walks through she notices the occasional measuring device, looking
like giant weather vanes, measuring ground movement. And there other mysterious
underground mounds, no doubt also something to do with measuring subsidence.
She approaches an area of blocks of more modern flats. These
look mostly empty. It’s quiet. If there’s been a shoot-out there’s no sign of
it here. These flats will be the first to go, she reads.
Further on she reaches ‘Hjalmar Lundbohms Gård’, the home of
the first director of the mine. In theory this is open daily, and you pay to
look around, or have a coffee and a waffle. In practice opening hours are a bit
loose, she finds, so instead Maisie has brought a flask of coffee and some
biscuits. She heads over to ‘B1’, that romantically named building that is
believed to be Kiruna’s first. It’s always locked, but you can sit on the steps
among the snow covered birch trees, and listen to the gentle hum of the mine.
Maisie imagines Lundbohm at his desk back then, puffing away at his pipe, while
his men hack away risking life and limb at the rock nearby.
Over the way is the mine’s large hotel – where the company
entertained some of Sweden’s
high society from 1910 onwards, and where they held annual parties for the
children of their workers. Sadly, this hotel will be demolished, though
Lundbohm’s house will be moved elsewhere.
Continuing into the park there are information boards and a
few pictures, and a very useful loo. There’s a small ice rink, and a place to
make a fire, if you’re a boy scout. Which she isn’t, so she
isn’t the least bit tempted, and presses on back up to the road and over to
Kiruna’s town hall. There she parks her Spark in the ‘Spark Park’.
She’ll be very sorry when all this goes. The clock tower
plays tunes, and the door handles are made from reindeer – it’s a magical
building. Inside there’s a large warm welcoming space with lots of nice
paintings to look at on the walls on all the floors above. You can climb up the stairs to the
other floors and look down on whatever is happening on the ground floor.
‘Kiruna’s front room’ they call it. Today it’s laid out with tables and chairs
and places for a lot of people to eat. You can wander pretty much wherever you
like, which must be a nuisance for people who work there. She peers through an
open door. It’s the council chamber, and a meeting is about to restart after a
coffee break. She spots a few local politicians. ‘You can run, but you can’t
hide,’ she thinks.
She goes back down to look at the scale model of the town,
and the exhibition about the plans for the new one. There’s a children’s play
area right next to it, and for all she can see the plans for the new town might
have been drawn up by some of those children. Good that Jack isn’t with her –
he’d tell her she ought to be more positive. Well she is positive. She’s really
positive about the idea of a coffee and bun in the cafe.
Details
All year round activity
Walking, or Spark
Free
Walking directions from Lynne and Rolf
