(Wednesday, March 13)
Today, we had another adventure with Kjell Westerdahl, this time to the Naturum Dalarna museum and Lake Siljan. Lake Siljan is part of the Siljan Ring or Siljansringen, formed when a meteorite hit what is now Lake Siljan 360 billion years ago. The recoil from the meteorite impact formed a granite dome in the center of the ring and the circular depression around the dome formed the several lakes and valleys that make up the ring. Both Mora and Skattungbyn lie in the Siljan Ring.
We drove along a picturesque highway around the lake to the island where the museum is located, as Kjell told us how the Siljan Ring was formed.
The Siljan Ring on the museum map. Look for the white dot near the narrowest part of the largest lake. Yep, that’s Mora. Lake Siljan lies to the north.
We drove through a beautiful hillside village, with red wooden buildings that are so common here in Sweden. At the top of the hill, we stopped to take a group picture and look out at the beautiful view over Lake Siljan.
At the Siljan Museum at the top of the hill, we saw our tour guide’s butterfly collection, saw a tree cookie from the oldest tree in Siljan, a rune stone, and some stuffed game, and took turns posing in pictures with them, and saw a composter that looked like a hedgehog.
me looking out from the children’s tunnel
We climbed up the observation tower and looked out over the Siljan valley. In spite of the freezing cold, it was breathtaking to be up so high and look down around the valley.
View from the observation tower
After our visit to the museum, we drove to the shores of Lake Siljan for lunch. Kjell was kind enough to bring sleds for us to haul our food to a little island across the beautiful lake, with the sun reflecting off the snow. He had brought some stir fry, which we took turns cooking over a campfire. When we weren’t watching the fire, some of us explored the island and lake, while others of us went the good old-fashioned childhood route and entertained ourselves by running and sliding on the ice or smashing snowballs. After the stir-fry, we roasted coffee over the fire, just as we had done in Mora.
The island where we had our picnic lunch
Matt and Devon making lunch
That afternoon, we drove around the beautiful village around the lake, which had store signs painted in white, cursive letters right on the buildings, and finished off the day with the Siljan museum, concluding another long, splendid day in the great Swedish outdoors with Kjell.