The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
The holiday that changed me ‘I need a daily dose of nature’
For ‘Mystery Road’ actress Sofia Helin, childhood trips to the wild north of Sweden had a lifelong impact
Ihad no idea that my parents’ love of the countryside – and our annual visits to the family’s summer houses in Vasterbotten, a region in the north of Sweden – would be so influential on my life and my sense of well-being. My parents took us there from when we were very small, right up to the time when I was a teenager.
Every summer, my family would drive more than 600 miles north from our home in Linghem, near Linkoping, to our summer houses for a holiday. When I first started going, there were two very rudimentary properties. The first was built by my mother’s parents in the 1940s, and the second has been there since the 1950s.
The oldest one is a basic, wooden, one-level house very close to the beach, with just one bedroom and one living area, plus a kitchen with an open fire in it. There was no running water, so we had to wash in the very cold sea. If we were swimming, we could measure the temperature by how much our feet or head hurt when we were in the water!
Being there was a very physical experience for me – I remember the sound of the wind in the trees, the waves on the beach, and the smells of the forest. My mother became a different person when we arrived – it was as if all the stress left her body and I had another mother.
To pick up food supplies, we would have to drive to the local town, Lovanger. My brother was really into fishing, g, so, when he was successful, we could eat whatever he had caught. . From the houses, there were lovely ovely views across the beach to the sea, and directly behind ehind was a mountain and nd forest. It was the perfect fect childhood holiday y setting.
The properties erties had no television, on, radio or internet access of course, or even ven a telephone back ck then, and that secluded ecluded aspect made e it feel all the more re special. A third, hird, slightly bigger summer house was added about eight years ago, with a sauna this time.
My parents divorced when I was four, so I also used to go further north after a few weeks to spend time with my father and my cousins up in Norrbotten County, just beneath the Arctic Circle, where it was light all day and night. I remember there were reindeer walking along the highways that belonged to the Sami, nomadic people indigenous to northern Europe.
I once read a children’s children book about a Sami boy called Plupp, which described their lives in the mountains. It so sounded interesting and diffe different, but not something th that might cause problems b between people. That awa awareness of land loss an and other issues came m much later on.
To m me, it was just what we did – this total immersion in natur nature every year. Thos Those s ummer hous houses became a regu regular feature of my life and we mad made friends with the people living locally and also their children. When my mother remarried, I had a stepsister to play with as well.
My own family bought a summer cottage a few years ago, on the Stockholm archipelago where there are more people around. We spend a lot of time there now, but I do cherish the week I still have up north in Vasterbotten. It feels like it is in my nervous system … the smells and the sounds.
I think we all crave a connection to nature and that we benefit from being in it. That was something I felt very keenly when I filmed in Broome, Australia, last year. I met Aboriginal people and learnt from them, about their culture, their relationship to the land, and their unique way of relating to time.
It reminded me of the Sami people in Sweden and how they have faced similar issues about land appropriation. I could understand all that in a new way after meeting the indigenous people of Australia. There are so many similarities when it comes to conflicts around lifestyle and relationship to the land. Unfortunately, this conflict continues in Sweden. When I return to Stockholm, it’s difficult to readapt to my busier life and its much more stressful relationship with time. When you are under stress, you lose that connection to your being and to nature. I feel we have a lot to learn from the approach to life of indigenous people.
I like to get a daily dose of nature, usually by walking around two islands – Skeppsholmen and Kastellholmen – close to where I live in Stockholm. Sadly, this year because of the Covid outbreak we didn’t get to Vasterbotten during the summer. Both my daughter and I remarked many times how we missed the smells from there. My family holidays from childhood created a deep need for nature. I can’t imagine my life without that kind of element and connection.
As told to Roz Lewis
Mystery Road: Series 2