21-Jun-2001 -- This confluence lies deep in forest country, in a region called "finnskogarna" (the Finn forests) after the Finnish immigrants who settled around here in the 17th century.

On a cloudy, drizzly day we plotted the route from our summer house in Tönsen to the confluence using OziExplorer. Thanks to an extensive network of logging roads, we found that we could travel quite close to the confluence by car.

We took off in the car, with the laptop in my wife’s lap hooked up to the GPS. After navigating trough 55 kilometres of dirt road, we came up to a closed gate...

It was not locked though, so hoping that no one would mind our friendly (and important!) confluence expedition, we opened it and drove trough. We drove by the earliest Finnish settlement "Bocksjön", mentioned in writing as early as 1606, and reflected upon what it must have been like travelling and settling in these immense forests at that time, without maps and roads, directed only by hearsay and nature's signs.

After 10 more kilometres we came as close to the confluence as we could by car. We hiked the remaining 500 meters into the lush, wet forest and found the confluence right in the middle of a nice lingonberry patch. The forest was less dense right at the confluence so we got a pretty good reading and could watch the zeros fill the display.

The area around the confluence is quite featureless, typical Swedish forest with low blueberry and lingonberry bushes, moss, lichen, different kinds of pine-trees etc. And mosquitoes, lots of mosquitoes! It should be good berry-picking grounds later in the summer and fall.