To mighty Mjältön - round trip

Oneperson who knows Mjältön's magnificent nature very well is Peter Bernström. The Scanian farmer who fell in love with the High Coast during his visits. In the spring, he usually takes a boat to the south side of Mjältön and enjoys the tranquility and the sounds of the birds.

"I launch my smaller boat around Easter if it's ice-free. Then I go out into the archipelago, alone because no one wants to follow me in the cold. When I dock in Baggviken, the spring ice usually crunches under the hull and there I usually watch the seabirds that have begun to arrive. The eiders, the great jays, all the mergansers and the occasional loon. There is a buzzing love life around Mjältön during that time.

The first time I was on Mjältön was in the mid-90s. Then I was involved in pulling a seine on Baggsand, this fantastic sandy beach. We caught some whitefish and some sea trout and sat down and grilled. While we were doing that, the gull came and took our catch. Peter Bernström

Peter's wife, Gerd's, father grew up in the village of Sund in Docksta and when the couple moved north from Skåne in 2011, this was where they looked. Sund is the closest town on the mainland from Mjältön and there were five farmers from Sund who originally owned the island and carried out agriculture and forestry there. In the summers, the cattle were rowed out to Sund's summer pastures for grazing after being driven out to the narrowest part of the sound. Today, there is only a small house left there to bear witness to this. Fishing has of course been great and on Baggsand there has been a seine since old, even today.

Over the years, there have been many trips in the High Coast for Peter and today he organizes boat trips to various islands and places in the archipelago through HögaKustenTurer. Mjältön is a popular destination. He thinks he sees that more and more people are looking there. Everyone wants to climb to the island's highest point on Bastutoberget, customary on that hike is that you bring a stone and put it on top so that Mjältön can reach even higher. Paddling here is popular nowadays, and many also find pleasure in the varied and beautiful nature that exists in the different parts of the island.

"In addition to being Sweden's highest island, which must be pointed out, Mjältön has a lot of different habitat types. In the north we have the mountains, cliffs, shingle fields and forest. Wilderness to put it bluntly. Further south we have Baggviken with its magical, magical nature, Baggtjärn and Baggsand's sandy beach.

Around the island there are many small places to dock, the most iconic being the protected natural harbor Baggviken, but the whole island is popular with paddlers and boat owners. At Önnskär there is a quarry where the famous red rapakivi granite has been quarried. The granite was shipped to Stockholm for the construction of what was to become the Riksbank's house. Where the Riksdag is located today. Further back in history, in the myths of the robbers in Skuleskogen, it is said to be here on Mjältön that they met their fate after being lured into a trap by cunning and angry villagers.

"I think it's so much fun to be able to show the archipelago and the environment that we have here and what values there are. On my tours, I usually tell you early on where we are, in the High Coast World Heritage Site. That if we had been in this place 10,000 years ago, everything around us would have been sea, everything except for a small islet that today is the top of Skuleberget. All as a result of the land uplift.

One day, the land uplift that gave Mjältön the title of Sweden's highest island will also steal it back. When Trångsundet rises out of the sea and ceases to be a strait and Mjältön in turn ceases to be an island. But for many centuries to come, Mjältön will remain as the lord of the hill.

"Mjältön is fantastic. Everyone who has been there knows that.