Monday, July 14, 2008

At Lake Hornborgasjön

Here are two sketches I made by Lake Hornborgasjön this sunday. If any of you blogreaders don´t want a history lesson please stop reading now.
In the top drawing you can see a typical mountain for my region. It looks like a flat hat because of the last ice age. 10 000 years ago Scandinavia was covered with a really thick ice layer. When the ice started to melt and withdraw it brought with it the top layers of the mountains leaving just the very solid stone material left. When the ice line continued north it also left big heaps of gravel and other geological material and therefore we can see long soft hills in the landscape. You can even see a cople of them in the top picture.
When the ice age was over people came wandering in from the south and started to populate this area. The first findings are from 8000 bc. Back then they lived on the mountain sides in winter and in summer they came down to the lake to fish and hunt. The remains of the first family dog in Swedish history is actually found by this lake.
Today it is a very popular place for nature lovers. Each years thousands and thousands of cranes come here to mate and dance their peculiar dance. Thousands and thousands of tourists from all over watch them. Sometimes I wonder though if the cranes partly come here to take a look at these strange human beings.
The building in the lower sketch is built for the tourists and to melt into the landscape. The roof is made by reed from the lake. It used to be the most common roof material in these parts. It has become very popular move to this area and many artists and musicians love to spend time here.

2 comments:

Odd Chick said...

I found your blog for the first time and it is really beautiful and loved the history lesson!

Deb said...

Your work is beautiful! I enjoyed visiting your blog!