Article from "Ejdern Telegrafen" 1999,
our yearbook.

Björkö-Birka!

(Björkö is the island where Birka is situated) About Birka, the Viking town. It was founded about 1200-1500years ago but lasted just for a couple of hundred years and why it was, apparently rather sudden, abandoned nobody knows. Maybe because the waterway between the Baltic and lake Mälaren was grounded up, or maybe the town of Sigtuna, further up the lake and closer to Stockholm, became more popular. Times were changing at that time as Christianity was introduced in Sweden and it's said that the people of Birka were not at all easy to convince. The German monk Ansgar who was send for this task was forced to leave the town after 12 years. He returned once though and was followed by another German, a bishop. Anyway, the friendly Vikings (there were others!) went east to trade iron and furs mostly, to Russia and the Caspian sea. And traders from France and Great Britain came to Birka to trade, coins, glass and other things have been found. About 80 000 tourists visited Birka this past summer.
After the tourists. About the island when the tourists are gone. Only one farmer still works his own soil since the 1700 (potatoes, grains and hay for the animals) but many more live there and work on the mainland (even Stockholm) and the children go to school on other surrounding bigger islands. There are no cows to milk just young cattle kept for meat and sheep which are good for keeping the landscape open. Fishing used to be a way of living but not these days. One of the old inhabitants never even meets the tourists, he keeps to himself in the summer. The people on the island are rarely cut off by ice in the winter as a hovercraft is put in when an ordinary boat won't do.

Translation: Birgitta Bengtsson

Next Article