Robert Lindstedt is manager of the hotel in Riksgränsen, a village in the rugged and isolated north of Sweden, 1,500 kilometers north of Stockholm. “The skiing is why people work or visit here,” he says, “and you have to enjoy skiing to appreciate the place.  If you get bored, you go skiing. It’s a way of life up here.”

So what does Midsummer look like in a place 300 kilometers above the Arctic Circle, only 300 meters from the Norwegian border (Riksgränsen means “the country border”) and 35 kilometers from the coast?

Midnight ski

While the meal is the traditional menu of pickled herring, boiled new potatoes and aquavit, it’s the postprandial activities that are different. The epic mountain scenery combined with excellent piste and off-piste skiing gives Midsummer celebrations in Riksgränsen a special edge. Instead of plunging into a local lake or dancing around the Midsummer pole (midsommarstång), as many Swedes end up doing, visitors to Riksgränsen head for the slopes.


Skiing at Swedish Riksgränsen is something out of the ordinary, says hotel manager Robert Lindstedt.
Photo: Private

While the average temperature is between 10˚ and 15˚ Celsius (50˚ and 59˚ Fahrenheit) in June, it can get comfortably warm in the sun. It’s sometimes even possible to ski in shorts and t-shirt.

“There’s a mountain above the resort with six ski lifts, and that’s where people head,” Lindstedt says. “It’s quite a weird sensation seeing hundreds of people heading up the mountain at ten o’clock in the evening under the glow of the midnight sun. For me it’s a real thrill to be able to be out on the slopes so late.”

Advanced skiers only

Lars Thulin, a professional photographer who runs guided tours in the region, moved to Riksgränsen from Stockholm 20 years ago. He has written a guide book to skiing the slopes around Riksgränsen, which covers 161 runs on 70 peaks.

“The main attraction for me was the landscape,” he says. “It’s a remote and isolated place with a lot of good off-piste skiing. It’s a great experience to ski in the middle of the night in summer – it’s cold, the snow is hard and the sun is a red glow in the sky.”

The skiing at Riksgränsen is quite demanding and not for beginners, says Thulin. “There are excellent off-piste opportunities for experienced and advanced skiers. Not only is the skiing itself demanding – the environment is too. It has become quite popular for the more adventurous people to climb up mountains and ski back down again.”

Unique tourist destination

The winter season at Riksgränsen runs from February to Midsummer. The peak period is from Easter through to the end of May, when the 600-bed hotel is fully booked every weekend. Up to 130 people work in Riksgränsen during the season, supporting the activities of the resort either working in the hotel or on the slopes. During this period the sun never completely sets, which means a disorientating amount of daylight for animals and humans alike.


All the way up in northernmost Sweden, Riksgränsen still manages to attract visitors from near and far.
Photo: Strömma Fjäll & Aktivitet

Lindstedt says people travel from far and wide to sample the skiing, mountaineering and heli-skiing on offer. “We have a local crowd from Umeå, Luleå and Narvik,” he says. “But we also flew up 3,000 people from Stockholm this season. More and more foreign visitors are coming along as well. It’s quite a unique experience for people used to more traditional ski destinations.”

Anki Dahlin and her husband visited Riksgränsen for a skiing holiday combined with scuba diving off the Norwegian coast. “We wanted an exotic Scandinavian experience,” she says. “The skiing was great and when the sun came out it was actually very hot. The funny thing was we had to wear more clothing under our dry suits when we went diving than we had worn on the ski slopes. That was quite an amazing experience.”

Ski or leave

The cradle of skiing in Sweden, Riksgränsen hosted the first international slalom competition in 1934. The resort also became host to the first “extreme” skiing competition, the Scandinavian Big Mountain Championships, in 1992, since then an annually recurring event. And in 1995, Ingmar Backman, a professional snowboarder, set the world record for the highest “air out of a quarter pipe” at Riksgränsen.

In short, if you don’t love skiing and the outdoors, you have no business being in town.

Nicholas Claude

Nicholas Claude is a freelance writer based in Stockholm. Raised in the warmer climate of South Africa, he prefers to spend Midsummer in the sun, at sea level.

The author alone is responsible for the opinions expressed in this article.

Classification: A201EN