04-Jan-2002 --

The confluence sits just a few hundred meters from European Main road E4, but on the opposite side of a lake, as seen from the road.

Me and my family were on the way from Stockholm to Söderhamn using the E4 and therefore passed the spot. My plan - of course confirmed with the family - was to take a break there which would enable me to visit the confluence.

About half a mile up the road from where it is closest to the confluation there is a rest spot and we stopped there. The lake seemed frozen enough to cross, but 40-50 cm of wet snow made the family stay behind at the car.

In this part of Sweden the terrain/ground is known to be more than stony. In some parts you can walk for miles without actually stepping on solid ground, but on boulders and blocks all the way, unless in bogs and similar. This part was not as extreme as that, but you can see a lot of rocks in the pictures, despite the snow and the lake.

I hoped for the photographs that the actual spot would be upon a major boulder I saw, but after crossing the lake the map told me that it actually was 10-15 meters further East. I got there around 2:45 PM. I did not use a GPS receiver, but instead the Swedish 1:50.000 scale "Lantmateriets terrangkarta" (formerly known as "Gröna kartan - "The Green Map"). And since this was a quite open area and a lake shore just beside the confluation, I decided that the map, mostly done from air photos must be very accurate at the spot.

I took the photos and put a small sign at the place.

... but in the haste to get going that morning before it got too late (we had 150 miles to travel and sun sets at about 3 PM) I made a minor but still major error when in a split second making a sign to put at the spot. So I just hope that some other confluence fan changes the last letter of the text "61^ N 17^ V" ...

I got back to my family at the car, finding my 6-year old daugther happily playing in the snow in the now substantial dusk. The other two did not complain about waiting for the hour this trip took.

The next day the main reason for the trip occurred, when we got my wife's brother happily married, but that is another story.