Ten thousand years ago, the last time the ice melted, this archipelago in the province of Blekinge in Sweden was born, consisting of over 1000 islands and 90 km of coastline. Today, part of it is an UNESCO biosphere reserve. A network of trails, called ARK56, guides you through this amazing part of our planet.

“The rock I am standing on is old. Two billion years to be precise.” Per-Arne Olsson likes to put things in perspective to captivate our listening ears. We are in Blekinge, literally translated as calm water, Sweden’s second smallest province. We are walking part of the Blekingeleden, a long-distance trail (240 km) that borders the Skåneleden (1000 km). We pass a group of cream white cows, cooling themselves in the Baltic Sea. The kayaks await at the end of our trail. The sea is very calm, so we don’t need a spray skirt today. After briefly testing the foot pedals, putting my phone in the dry-bag and pushing myself into the water, shaking and bumping, I feel water underneath me, and my world starts to wobble. Not much later, I paddle all alone over a sea that was once frozen. What to do? Do I go further into the great wide open, or do I paddle to Tjärö, the island famous for its delicious lunches? I can see the red and white houses on the island already. Just in front of me is a much smaller island. More of a rock with birds that have turned into silhouettes: cormorants drying out their plumage.

Olsson nods: “the European bison, also called lowland wisent, is the smaller cousin of the American Great Bison Belt resident. There are 55 European bison here. You’ll find 5,000 in the wild, spread throughout Europe. If you add the ones in private parks to that figure, including those found in Eriksberg, you reach a total of 7,000 European bison. That sounds like a lot, but to put this in perspective, there are more black rhinos in the world than there are European bison.

What about moose, I want to know? Will we get to see them too? “There are only animals here that have always lived in this area: red deer, fallow deer, wild boar, mouflon,” Olsson says. And European bison so it seems. The Swedish Big Five, you might say, although the moose is missing. It would appear that the vegetation here is unsuitable for this Swedish icon.

A legend
Bengt Berg was one of the founding fathers of the park. Speaking of icons, as well as being an ornithologist Bengt Magnus Kristoffer Berg (1885-1967) was one of the world’s first nature photographers, starting his photographic career in 1910. He was talented and had guts too. He photographed bearded vultures in the The Himalayas out of a hot air balloon. His work was highly regarded as the following tale proves. Back to the year 1925. While Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush and the legendary film Pantserkruiser Potjomkin premiere in Berlin, people are queuing up for a completely different film. For four months in a row, people flocked to the Victoria Theatre, one of the biggest movie-theatres of the time, with room for 2600 people.

The theatre is completely sold out twice a day. The speaker is the Swedish nature filmmaker Bengt Berg. And as the audience watches animals they’ve never seen before, such as shoebill storks from South Sudan, a soft voice tells his tales. A man who has been everywhere: Africa, India, Bhutan. A world traveller, nature film pioneer and above all an animal lover. The man who founded the Eriksberg Nature Reserve in 1938. Thanks to him, there are sea eagles left in Sweden. And greylag geese, the golden eagle and the mute swan. A true conservation legend.

Out of Africa
A man who spontaneously joins us on our safari reminds me a bit of Bengt Berg in some ways. “Nice to meet you, Yngve Bergqvist is the name.” Just a tad later, the penny drops: he is the founder of the Swedish Ice hotel. The businessman and visionary, dressed for the occasion, is on the board of the Eriksberg Nature Reserve. In his hand, he has a glass of red wine. On his head, he wears a cigar-brown cap, vintage style. We look out over the lake together, in silence.

The great thing is that you can camp here. Right on this very spot. High on a mountain. Looking out over a thousand and one water lilies in pastel shades. A sea eagle is circling above us. And wait, was that a wild boar in the corner of my left eye? Then another, smaller one, and another. The boar kids run along in small frightened steps, following their mother into the forest.
We are on the terrace of a glamping tent, where you can stay for 560 euros per night. The architect-designed glamping tent looks like a film set, including retro binoculars. We are not staying the night here ourselves, but we do eat in the park in the evening. Outdoor chefs Nilsson and Palm prepare our meals. Both dressed in red-checkered shirts; they make us fallow deer sirloin. Eat whatever the land gives you, that’s the way they do things here. You don’t go to the butcher for an ounce of ground beef
when you’re in Eriksberg. You eat freshly hunted deer.