Venice of the north
The Nordic country of nine million people live in tune with nature in a very familiar way for Canadians. Half the year is dark and snowy, while the other half is spent making up for lost time by enjoying the sunshine and waterways.
And, water is something they have a lot of. Stockholm, Sweden’s largest city of about 1 million people, is sometimes called “the Venice of the North” because it is a series of islands connected through bridges and ferries (sorry, no cool pole boats).
In Sweden, the water is so clean that people regularly fish for salmon just off a bridge in the downtown. No need to worry about heavy metals. No need to even worry about fishing licenses, anybody can fish.
Royal gardens
When you walk around the streets of Stockholm, you can instantly tell that something green is happening. People are walking on pedestrian only streets, and when they aren’t walking they are biking. The bike racks at train stations or in the downtown business district takes holds one or two thousand bikes. In fact, over 20 per cent of people bike everywhere in the pleasant months of spring, summer and fall.
So many people are biking that a project has been launched at 40 of the train and bus stations in Stockholm renting bikes for an hour, a day or even the May to September. The bike rental program was just a pilot project last year, but it has been so successful that it has been expanded this year.
Once you have one of the bikes, there are no shortage of interesting environment-themed places to visit. The Rosendal Gardens (or Rosendals Tradgardar, in Swedish) is a large public garden in Stockholm and a haven for organic, fair trade, local food. The gardens were created in 1862 by the King of Sweden, and the grounds are still rented from the Swedish royalty.
Inside the gardens, plants of all different shapes and sizes abound. The original mission of the garden was to help the poor, Swedish people to know more about agriculture to help them make a better life. Thus, people could ask for seeds or cuttings to plant in their gardens.
From the garden to the table
Now, the message of helping the community is not so different. All the produce is grown in a “biodynamic” way, meaning that it helps nourish the earth while helping nourish the people. The only things added to the plants are the garden’s own compost and tender loving care.
All the beautiful food is then sold in the shop or turned into food in the restaurant like delicious lamb stew served with a garden salad. Moreover, the bread baked in the ovens are still fired by local wood, and one fire can bake 14 batches of bread – how’s that for good use of natural resources!
The gardens also offers courses in agriculture, everything from how to grow vegetables, flowers, or make compost to a new course aimed at growing the soul. Says Antoine Berthelin, the head gardener, “People were always asking if they could come in and garden to help relax them when they were sick. Now, we work on illness prevention.” The program has people come one weekend a month to garden in the morning, and in the afternoon they paint, sing, write, or just meditate in the gardens.The gardens were a true gem in the Spring and well into the summer.
Tea with the king
And, if you are looking for another place with a little bit of environmentalist history and a great sandwich, you can’t miss the tea house in the King’s Gardens. http://The tea house is located in the middle of a cluster of elm trees. In the 1970s, the trees were proposed to be demolished to make way for a metro station. Several young environmentalists chained themselves to the trees, and in the end the plans were changed to allow the trees to stand.
The café serves wonderful coffees, as well as an assortment of great warm sandwiches and salads. Enjoying the great food with a view to the water in the King’s Gardens is one of the Stockholm’s sweetest treats.
Graeme Stemp-Morlock is a freelance science & environment writer based in Waterloo, Ontario. He visited Sweden with help from the Swedish Institute.
Green Living Blogs
