Norrbyskär
Norrbyskär is one of Västerbotten's most important
tourist destinations. Just before the turn of the century a brand
new community was built on a handful of isolated islands outside
Norrbyn. This evolved into the biggest sawmill in Europe for its
time. Norrbyskär was a society built with completely new
standards, focusing on the well-being of those who worked there.
The community provided excellent services and coming to work at
Norrbyskär was considered a privilege. Multifamily homes
lined the straight streets on Långgrundet and Stuguskär.
The first log was sawn on Norrbyskär in March 1895.
At its height in the 1920s, as many as 1,400 permanent residents
lived on this dynamic island. The good years were followed by
bad ones and uncertainty about the future of the mill grew. The
mill faced cutbacks and efficiency measures and in 1952 closure
was unavoidable; the sawmill era was over. Norrbyskär, which
just a few decades ago was an industrial community, is now an
idyllic summer island with tens of thousands of visitors every
year.
The sawmill was located at the north tip of Långgrundet,
while the most important shipping port and timber yard were on
the long left side of Långgrundet. The other islands were
used for other purposes. The director's house, with its lovely
park and skittle alley, was on Stuguskär. The planing mill,
a large timber yard, and charcoal production were on Tanskär.
Stone was quarried on the northern part of Kalmarn for use in
house foundations and on the southern part of the island wood
shavings arrived from the mill by ropeway and were processed.
The seasonal workers had their own island at Stengrundet and Blågrundet.
Because of the seasonal nature of their employment they did not
move here with their families. The mill ran until the 1950s when
all operations came to a halt. Umeå municipality bought
the islands from MoDo in 1977.
Today the large sawmill building is gone, as are many
other traces of the industrial era. In addition, the uplift of
the land has caused the islands that once comprised Norrbyskär
to more or less grow together. The clearest signs of the island's
industrial history are the straight streets with the lovely homes
on Stuguskär and Långgrundet. The director's residence
is now a restaurant, Norrbyskärs Värdshus. Norrbyskär
has become a summer island with activities that attract visitors
from near and far.
In addition to its cultural history, Norrbyskär also
offers many lovely natural setting. During the industrial era
essentially all land on the islands was used. As a result, not
much is left of the original vegetation, but it is interesting
to see how quickly nature reclaims the land.
On Tannskär where the large planing mill once stood,
a dense lush alder forest now grows and in the middle of the green
foliage you can find remains of floor tiles from the planing mill.
The simple path around Tannskär is well worth a walk. The
path starts at the church at the end of Långgrundsgatan.
Don't miss the lovely grove of mountain ash trees on one of the
headlands to the south.
On the north end of Kalmarn are cliffs from which stone
was once quarried. The smooth rocks closest to the water were
not touched and are today lovely swimming beaches. KFUM (YMCA
in English, NMKY in Finnish) has its operations on Stengrundet-Blågrundet
in the eastern portion of the archipelago, with camping, canoeing
and sailing, as well as adventure courses and a climbing wall.
At the far north of the island is a small sandy beach by "kolarkojan"
(charcoal hut). South of the KFUM facility are lovely heaths and
a path leading to the southernmost tip, Per-Ivarsgrundet.
Large parts of the deciduous forests on Norrbyskär
have already aged so much that they are becoming biologically
interesting. In Umeå municipality's inventory of valuable
coastal deciduous forests, 40 hectares of coastal deciduous forests
with the highest natural rating were found on Norrbyskär.
The island's geology is another interesting aspect of Norrbyskär.
If you look at the map you will see the island's clear orientation
in a north-south direction, exactly the direction of the movement
of the inland ice when it created these elongated moraine ridges,
known as drumlins. We sometimes find the same phenomenon in the
Skeppsvik archipelago. On Norrbyskär several of the island's
moraines are also distributed behind a cliff at the north. This
is the case with Tannskär, Kalmarn and Stuguskär.
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