A SHIP CALLED JUNO
Sailing on Sweden’s canals is high art
IT might be the world’s oldest registered passenger ship, but some aspects of sailing Sweden’s Gota Canal on the MS Juno are surprisingly modern. We were watching from on deck in the waterside sunshine as 33-year-old woman officer Corin Risenberg navigated Juno through the first of seven interconnected locks, a spectacular feat of 19th-century engineering that connects the glassy expanse of Lake Vattern with the inland waterway on whose length we would travel for three days: Sweden’s fabled Gota Canal.
Risenberg heads an eight-strong crew aboard the Juno, six of whom are able seawomen. So it’s appropriate that Juno is named after the most powerful goddess in the Roman pantheon. Purpose-built in 1874 for the Gota’s 7m width, Juno is the world’s oldest registered passenger ship with overnight accommodation. It is, as you might expect, compact: its capacity limited to the 44 passengers it can seat to dine and its staterooms — which owe more in their dimensions to old-fashioned train sleeper compartments — raising eyebrows among the portliest cruise-goers.
Livia and Bengt, two Swedes among Juno’s predominantly Scandinavian and German passenger list, were happy with their cosy quarters. I chatted to the 60something couple over the second of many gourmet meals in Juno’s small dining room: elk with horseradish sauce, followed by cloudberry parfait.
The Gota Canal, according to Bengt, tops many Scandinavians’ trips-of-a-lifetime list.
“It’s a national treasure to us Swedes. So it was natural to make this the first trip after we retired,” said Bengt. “It’s a qualified treasure,” said Livia. “After all, Swedes nickname Gota the ‘divorce ditch’ for the number of couples who fall out trying to navigate its locks.”
I sailed just as the ship marked the 500year anniversary of the first proposal for a man-made canal linking the Baltic Sea at Stockholm to the Kattegat — an area of sea bound by the Jutlandic peninsula — at Gothenburg. It took another 300 years for Bishop Hans Brask’s vision of the “joining of the seas” to be realised by German-born Swedish admiral Baltzar von Platen and the sweat of 600 conscripted Swedish soldiers.
Unveiled in 1832, the Gota Canal was an important trade route up until and during the world wars, but by the late 1950s it had fallen into disuse. In the ’80s the Swedish government invested £85-million (about £250-million today) to refit the canal for leisure boating. These days it’s Sweden’s largest recreation ground: a 160km-long ribbon cutting through farmland and forest dotted with traditional country houses.
We had taken the east-west route along the Gota, which begins at Stockholm and disembarks passengers three days later at the industrial port of Gothenburg. After the bustle of Stockholm, Juno’s pace — the rhythmic thump-plup of the ship at our cruising speed of 16km/h — was deliciously restful.
Each day brought opportunities to leave the ship for a stroll beside the locks, take a lake swim or head off on excursions which included visits to a medieval convent and the impressive Karlsborg Fortress, a vast fortification built in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. Many of Juno’s passengers, however, preferred to stay aboard to pore
It’s a national treasure to us Swedes … So it was natural to make this the first trip after we retired
over canal history books in the shelter deck library, or snooze in the late-summer sunshine on the bridge deck.
At the small village of Hajstorp, we negotiated the final lock of our cruise — in front of an audience of dog-walkers. I found Livia and Bengt on the bridge deck, indulging in a post-schnapps nap (a Swedish tradition, they told me).
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Bengt, drowsily. I nodded. As we pulled out of the locks, a heron cast a figure-of-eight in Baltic-blue skies and a red deer overtook our lazy pace, bounding through ears of wheat.
Juno is one of five converted antique steamers that ply the Gota Canal, with a three-day cruise costing more than double the amount of Mediterranean cruises of a similar duration. Yet the experience — luxurious yet so intimate you get to know all of your fellow passengers and crew by name — is the antithesis of the anonymity offered by the large cruise ships.
The next day we departed the somnolent world of the Gota, heading into Gothenburg on the cargo-ship-cluttered Trollhattan Canal. I popped into the engine room to chat to Risenberg as she manoeuvred Juno between ships laden with Scandinavian timber.
Soon, she told me, she would conclude her training to captain container ships, joining the growing ranks of Swedish “water women” (the Swedish Maritime Administration reports that 60% of candidates for captaincy qualifications are now female).
“Some people are surprised to see a young lady in charge of this old lady of the Gota,” she said, as an exuberant cry of “skol!” rang out from the bridge deck. “I say it’s great there are now so many women in charge of our ships. Swedish girl power has reached the waves!” — © The Daily Telegraph