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Two amazing things happened today. A huge church started its move, 5km up a road and my original domain was returned to me. It only took a month. But I am over the moon. Now I just need to work out how to transfer the last month’s posts across. Still, I am happy about having my old domain back. As for the church…
Kiruna Church, up in the far north of Sweden, was in danger of sinking into the ground due to iron ore mining causing subsidence. An audacious plan was hatched to move it. And that started today, live on Swedish TV. I had it on all day.
While it was not exactly what you’d call exciting TV, it was still extraordinary.
Built in 1912, the church is beautiful. It is also quite heavy at over 670 tons. It looked majestic slowly moving along the road which had been especially widened in order for it to fit.
Quite the crowd of people followed it. Apparently the king was there but I didn’t see him. I did see an Italian artist who was interviewed by an SVT reporter. The reporter interviewed other people too but I didn’t understand them. The Italian and the reporter both spoke English, for which I’m grateful.
The Italian had a little folding chair and his watercolour equipment. On his lap were rough paintings of the church. He explained that he was working on a much bigger project back in his studio and these were preliminary works heading towards the whole. He wanted to create a work that looked like it was moving.
He then said he’d have to move because the church was getting too close to them.
The church features a big frieze painted by Prins Eugin and 12 statues by Christian Eriksson, whose studio we visited in Värmland last year.
It was designed by Gustaf Wickman, who strived to create a place of worship that welcomed everyone. In order to achieve this, he didn’t include anything overtly Christian. Some people see this as a bad thing. I think it makes it even more beautiful.
It’s not just the church that’s moving. The whole town is moving as well. The tunnels beneath it are straining to reach the richest deposits and must move forward.
Kiruna was founded in 1890 and, from all reports, looked beautiful in the frozen landscape around it. These days, the landscape is more like a giant scrap heap. While I’ve not been to Kiruna, I have seen plenty of photographs and paintings depicting the awful scar that mining has created.
Another big relocation is the grave of the town’s founder, Hjalmar Lundbohm. He will be dug up and moved to be reburied beside the church after it reaches its new home. Hjalmar was a geologist who, ironically, discovered the iron ore deposits in the first place.
So, all in all, a day full of excitement. Exciting for Mirinda too as she discovered the joys of marine navigation. But more of that later. For today, it was mostly about a big old church on wheels.
I love engineers and their clever ways.
Now, let’s figure out how to move my posts back…
