Pathways to the trail – landscape, walking and heritage in a Scandinavian border region

ABSTRACT

Can walking trails be understood not only as routes to history and heritage, but also as heritage in and of themselves? The paper explores the articulation of trails as a distinct landscape and mobility heritage, bridging the nature-culture divide and building on physical and intellectual movements over time. The authors aim to contribute to a better understanding of the geography of trails and trailscapes by analysing the emergence of the Swedish-Norwegian trail Finnskogleden. The trail is situated in the border region spanning the former county of Hedmark in present-day Innlandet County, south-eastern Norway, and Värmland County in mid-western Sweden, a forested area where Finnish-speaking immigrants settled from the 16th century to the early 20th century. Archives, literature, interviews, and field visits were used to analyse the emergence and governance of the trail. The main finding is the importance of continuous articulation work by local and regional stakeholders, through texts, maps, maintenance, and mobility. In conclusion, the Finn forest trailscape and its mobility heritage can be seen as an articulation of territory over time, a multilayered process drawing on various environing technologies, making the trail a transformative part of a trans-border political geography.

KEYWORDS:

• articulation of territory
• environing technologies
• mobility heritage
• trailscapes
• walking trails

Acknowledgements

We thank the Swedish National Heritage Board (Riksantikvarieämbetet) for funding the research for this article. We also express our gratitude to the reviewers and editors of Norsk Geografisk Tidskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Finally, we wish to thank local informants in the Finn forest border region.

Notes

1 Morokulien is an area spanning Eidskog Municipality in Innlandet County, Norway, and Eda Municipality in Värmland County, Sweden.

2 The three co-authors of this article are responsible for all translations of quotations into English.

3 A leaflet titled ‘Finnskogleden’ by Kongsvinger kommune, 1990, seemingly aimed at potential visitors and tourists (source: Finn forest trail archive in the Norsk Skogfinsk Museum, Svullrya)

4 ‘Finnskogleden – en vandring i grenseland’ by ARKO-regionen & Gruetunet museum, 1992 (source: Norsk Skogfinsk Museum archives)

5 N. Keyland’s letter to Artur Hazelius dated 16 May 1898 (source: Nordiska museet archive, Stockholm, Sweden)