Qualla: Stekenjokk

Stekenjokk: Introduction

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Blommor85, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the evening of 18 January 2017, the anemometer on the Stekenjokk plateau logged an average wind of 47.8 metres per second, or 172 kilometres per hour. It was the strongest sustained wind measured anywhere in Sweden since national records began in 1951, and the strongest single gust that day reached 201.6 km/h. The station was already the record holder: 47 metres per second during Cyclone Hilde in November 2013. A typical Swedish storm averages around 25 metres per second, enough to make walking upright difficult. The reason one weather station keeps winning is simple. Up here there is nothing left standing to slow the air down.

Read more: Stekenjokk on Qualla

Image: Blommor85 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Stekenjokk: Above the Last Tree

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Blommor85, CC BY-SA 4.0. Stekenjokk straddles a county line, belonging partly to Strömsund Municipality in Jämtland and partly to Vilhelmina Municipality in Västerbotten, a few kilometres from the Norwegian border and Børgefjell National Park beyond it. The name is half Sami: jokk means watercourse. This...

Read more: Stekenjokk on Qualla

Image: Blommor85 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Stekenjokk: Twelve Years of Copper

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Blommor85, CC BY-SA 4.0. The plateau also held one of Sweden's more remote industrial gambles. Parliament debated state support for opening a mine at Stekenjokk in 1973, preparatory work began that summer, and Boliden brought the underground operation into production in 1976. It ran until October 1988. O...

Read more: Stekenjokk on Qualla

Image: Blommor85 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Stekenjokk: Teaching a Tailings Field to Grow

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Blommor85, CC BY-SA 4.0. Restoring ground like this is slow, unglamorous work. In 2020 Boliden and the consultancy Ecogain took a five-hectare patch of the old site and tried a five-step recipe on it. Sewage sludge mixed with wood chips went down about two centimetres deep, to release nutrients over seve...

Read more: Stekenjokk on Qualla

Image: Blommor85 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Stekenjokk: Reindeer and a Government Decision

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sprucecopse, CC BY-SA 4.0. Stekenjokk is summer pasture. Reindeer from Vilhelmina södra sameby graze the moor through the warm months, and the herding work itself is part of what visitors come to see. The plateau is a bird protection area and a Sami cultural landscape, and it carries rules to match; in 201...

Read more: Stekenjokk on Qualla

Image: Sprucecopse | CC BY-SA 4.0

Stekenjokk: Four Months of Road

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SibFreak, CC BY-SA 3.0. Vildmarksvägen, the Wilderness Road, runs 360 kilometres from Strömsund to Vilhelmina by way of Gäddede, Jormvattnet, Stora Blåsjön, Stekenjokk, Klimpfjäll, Kultsjön and Saxnäs, and locals call its high section Stekenjokkvägen after the pass. Climbing to roughly 870 metres, it is...

Read more: Stekenjokk on Qualla

Image: SibFreak | CC BY-SA 3.0