N'CLAV Grand Meeting in Gottskär, Day 3: A guided tour out of the ordinary

On Wednesday evening some of us went on a guided tour, which turned out to be like nothing we had ever experienced. It was a nice, light evening and we were looking forward to a good walk along the beautiful beach of Gottskär. We met up in the harbour, and were greeted by a rather large group of very friendly elderly people. It turned out that they together were our guide. The tour started by them pulling out some enlarged photographs of the area as it used to be 50-100 years ago. They placed themselves on a line each with a photograph so that we could study them carefully. One of the photos pictured a young women in a white dress and straw hat, and one of the elderly women wore a similar attire, a fact which they all pointed out to us repeatedly and excitedly.

After having put the photographs back into a wooden trolley, our guides took us 50 meters along the harbour, where we had a longish stop, and the photographs reappeared from the trolley for us to admire again. This guided tour turned out to be a real multimedia event when one of our guides pointed to an artistic relief sculpture of a local poet, A.U.Bååt,, then asked us to turn our faces to the sea and read aloud a poetic tribute to the sea, the ducks and the summer breeze. The photos went back into the trolley and we continued for a 100 meters, this time ending up at the destination, where we were told about the Danish history of this part of Sweden, and were served cider and sweets.

It was an unusual kind of a guided tour. The fact that it cost us nothing, that the guides served us refreshments, and that they kept photographing us, made us feel much more like their long-lost relatives than like a group of dialectologists at a conference. All the guides showed a strong love for their homeplace, which was indeed extremely beautiful. We can warmly recommend this tour to others who are looking for an experience out of the ordinary.

/Janne Bondi Johannessen

PS. The tour is called Gottskärsvandring, and this was the last tour for the season. /Maia Andréasson