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Girl with dog at the shore of lake Satisjaure (Satihaure) in Lapland. Photo: Björn Allard, 1958.
Girl with dog at the shore of lake Satisjaure (Satihaure) in Lapland. Photo: Björn Allard, 1958.

Would you like to view breath-taking landscapes in Lapland, Swedish archaeologists at work in loamy pits in the woods of Ångermanland, Swedes about to go hunting elk in Jämtland, and other motifs from central and northern Sweden?

Then you should follow the photostream of the Swedish National Heritage Board on Flickr Commons during spring, and have a look now and then in the “Björn Allard“ album. We will share a choice of colour images by the Swedish photographer Björn Allard, employed at the Swedish National Heritage Board in the 1950s and 1960s.

Björn Allard (1923-2006) took part in the Board’s archaeological surveys and excavations to contribute documentary photographs. An important part of his work was to document at the Board’s culture-historical surveys and archaeological excavations in northern Sweden, due to the regulations of Swedish lakes and rivers when new power plants were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s.

Lake Satisjaure (Satihaure) in Lapland. Today is the area part of Laponia, a UNESCO World Heritage. Photo: Björn Allard, 1958
Lake Satisjaure (Satihaure) in Lapland. Today is the area part of Laponia, a UNESCO World Heritage. Photo: Björn Allard, 1958

The images we will show on Flickr Commons are all in colour, chosen from about 450 colour slides by Björn Allard, which are digitized for the Swedish National Heritage Board’s photo database online Kulturmiljöbild. A lot more images in black and white by Björn Allard are held in our archives, most of them in the Board’s reports from the surveys at the lake regulations.

Five Swedish provinces will be represented in the new album. From north to south: Lapland (Lappland), Ångermanland, Jämtland, Dalecarlia (Dalarna), Östergötland and Västergötland. The images will be uploaded in this order, province by province.

The images are taken between 1957 and 1963. They show landscapes, cultural environments in the countryside and archaeologists from the Swedish National Heritage Board at field work. Locals in northern Sweden, at work or at leisure, will appear now and then. The area around lake Satisjaure (Satihaure) in Lapland, shown in the initial images of the album, is today part of Laponia, a world heritage listed by UNESCO.

We hope you will enjoy the images. Welcome to view, comment, tag and share!