Skuleskogen National Park (, literally The Skule Forest National Park) is a Swedish national park in Västernorrland County, on the coast of the Baltic Sea, in northern Sweden. It covers , constituting the eastern part of the Forest of Skule.
The park is characterized by a very rough topology with many rocky peaks, of which the highest is Slåttdalsberget, in altitude, rising directly from the sea. The topography is also marked by the presence of deep crevasses and caves. This particular topology can be found throughout the entire High Coast (), a region of Sweden so named because it constitutes the highest section of the coast of the Baltic Sea. This region is in our day principally known as a favoured site for the observation of the phenomenon of post-glacial rebound. Most of the region was under the sea less than 10,000 years ago, after the ice sheet that blanketed it melted. But thanks to the melting of this mass of ice that had been pressing down upon it, the ground is rising year by year, at a current speed of per year.
Humans have left their mark upon the park, although they probably never established themselves there in great numbers. Numerous Bronze Age funerary cairns are still visible along the ancient coastline. Later, the forest was mainly used as pasture. Things changed in the middle of the 19th century when the logging industry spread throughout Sweden, affecting almost all the forest of the park. This exploitation ceased, however, at the end of that century, so that the current forest is dominated by trees more than 100 years old. This forest has thus been able to recover a part of its ancestral richness, and so contains an important fauna and flora, with several endangered species, such as the lichen , which is the park's symbol. This geological and biological richness led to the creation of a national park in 1984, followed by the inclusion of the park with the rest of the High Coast in 2000 in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Today, despite its distance from areas of dense human population, the park is a relatively important site of tourism with 20,000 visitors per year. The principal attraction of the park is the deep crevasse of Slåttdalskrevan, which is easily accessible by numerous hiking trails, including the Höga Kustenleden, which goes along the whole of the High Coast.
Toponymy The national park takes its name from the forest of Skule, of which it constitutes the eastern part. The name in Swedish means "the forest of Skule", the word being common in the place names nearby, with for example Skuleberget ("mountain of Skule"), Skulesjön ("lake of Skule") or even the villages Skule and Skulnäs. However, there is a debate as to which toponym came first and was then transmitted to the others, as well as the meaning of this toponym.
A first hypothesis is that the name would have issued from the mountain Skuleberget, this being a point particularly notable in the landscape and one which would thus have been rapidly named. This name already appears in 1539 in the form and would derive from meaning "hiding place", the famous cave in the mountain having been in the past a refuge for brigands. Another hypothesis is that the name would have come from the village of Skule; Skuleskogen thus being "the forest on the way to Skule" or "the forest which belongs to Skule", Skule being the village allowed to pasture animals in the forest. This last hypothesis does not imply that the mountain did not have a name before the village of Skule came into being; the original name would have been a name which one ought not to pronounce, as is true of many places in the country, another name not forbidden then coming into common usage and replacing the old one.
Geography
Location and borders Skuleskogen National Park is in the municipalities of Örnsköldsvik and Kramfors, both of Västernorrland County, both in the historical Swedish province of Ångermanland. It is south of the city of Örnsköldsvik and north of the city of Kramfors, the respective capitals of the municipalities mentioned above.p. 8 It covers a surface area of of which are maritime,p. 12 the park stretching, in fact, along the coast of the Baltic Sea.
Topography
The park is included in the region called the High Coast, a zone of very rough relief, forming a joint valley landscape (): a landscape gouged by many small valleys formed by the erosion of fissures and faults in the bedrock.p. 43 The High Coast is generally defined as the portion of the eastern coast of Sweden between the cities of Härnösand and Örnsköldsvik. The name of this region comes from the fact that it is the highest section of the coast of the Baltic Sea, numerous summits elevating themselves from the sea to attain altitudes of 200 to . This rugged terrain stretches even under the surface of the sea; so, it is in this region that one finds the deepest point of the Bothnian Sea, Ulvödjupet, with a depth of .p. 37 The park itself covers the eastern part of the forest of Skule, characterized by a terrain forming a sort of wall separating the north and the south.p. 10
The topography of the park is characterized by these small valleys (), some even taking the appearance of vertitable crevasses, the most impressive being Slåttdalskrevan ( deep, long, wide), but also significant being Trollporten (the "Trolls' Door"), a small crevasse celebrated for the rock that rests across the top. Another characteristic element is the presence of many caves, although the most famous, Skulegrottan, in the mountain Skuleberget, is not inside the park.p. 45 The park's highest peak is Slåttdalsberget, at of altitude.cf. the map of the park
Climate The national park is bathed in a subarctic climate (Dfc according to the Köppen classification). The maritime influence explains why its early summers are colder than they are farther inland, but its autumns are in contrast more mild.p. 15 The topography causes important local variations. The climate is humid, with about of precipitation per year, of which more than a third in the form of snow, forming a snow cover lasting on average 175 days. Spring is the driest season, and in certain years this relative dryness has important consequences for the environment, especially because the thinness of the soil retains moisture poorly. In the regions acid rain most powerfully affected, surveys indicated that the situation is getting better, the pH of the precipitation gently increasing.
The nearest climate station to Skuleskogen National Park is in the village of Västmarkum, approximately 10 kilometers west. The station’s more inland and elevated (143 meters) positioning possibly renders the national park much milder, especially during late summer and early fall.
According to the Köppen climate classification, Skuleskogen National Park has a borderline subarctic climate (Dfc) with a notable dry-spring/early summer precipitation pattern. Extremes have ranged from 30.8 °C set during June 2020, to an all-time low of -26.4 °C from February 2018. The driest year was 2018 with 647 millimeters of precipitation whereas the wettest was 2020 when 1,061 millimeters of precipitation fell. The annual precipitation of almost 1000mm is by Swedish standards, especially east coast standards, very high. The high precipitation anomaly is largely due to the orographic lift effect owing to the adjacent hilly terrain of the High Coast. The precipitation is anticipated to further increase because of climate change. It is widely known that the region’s snow depth can vary depending on elevation and maritime influence from the Bothnian Sea. It is thus a high possibility the given snow depth data is skewed since it is measured 30 kilometers south of the Skuleskogen National Park, meaning that the park probably receives more snowfall.
Hydrology
Many streams run through the park, feeding many lakes. The principal lakes are Tärnättvattnen () and Stocksjön () belonging to the watershed of the streams Skravelbäcken and Långtjärnen (), belonging to the watershed of the stream Nylandsbäcken.p. 23 A non-negligible section of the park () is made up of fens.
Geology
Bedrock
The principal rock of the park is the granite of Nordingrå, the park belonging to the Nordingrå massif. It consists of a rapakivi granite, formed about 1500 million years ago. It has a characteristic bright red color and erodes easily. To the north-east of the park, one can also find diabase, which was formed 1200 million years ago in the faults of the Nordingrå massif.p. 16 Since granite forms a substrate very poor in nutrients, the diabase constitutes by contrast a very fertile terrain, which permits a richer vegetation.
The national park is traversed by several faults, like the rest of the High Coast. These faults were filled by deposits which marine erosion sometimes later removed. One of the most impressive examples of this phenomenon is Slåttdalsskrevan, east of the park : a crevasse of depth and width, which is one of the park's most visited sites. This crevasse was a fault filled by a vein of diabase, which was however eroded later, in part by the sea.
The High Coast
At the height of the last ice age, 20,000 years ago, the ice sheet, which covered all of Northern Europe, had its center in the sea near the High Coast. The ice's thickness attained , exerting significant pressure on the soil, which was thus situated below the current level of the High Coast. When the ice melted, the soil rose progressively, a phenomenon called the post-glacial rebound, at a speed of per year. The zone was only freed of ice 9,600 years ago. As the land emerged from Lake Ancylus (ancestor of the Baltic Sea), the waves affected the terrain of today's park. The coastline of that era can now be found at an altitude of , measured from Skuleberget, southwest of the national park, which constitutes an absolute record. The peaks of the park were islands at that time. The ancient coastline is notably made visible by vegetation caps, which cover the areas not submerged after the retreat of the glaciers, explaining the name ("mountain cap") given to certain mountains of the region and the park. These vegetation caps had been able to install themselves since, at these places, the moraines were not eroded by waves, and they thus constituted a place where vegetation could attach.
The post-glacial rebound continues even today: the island of Tärnättholmarna, inside the park, is becoming bit by bit a peninsula, and the bay of Salsviken is now a lake isolated from the sea by a small strip of sand.
Environment
Fauna
The park is home to many species of mammal characteristic to northern Sweden, in particular the Eurasian lynx () and the brown bear (), considered endangered in the country.p. 27 Besides these two species, one can find the red fox (), the European badger (), the European pine marten (), the moose (), the Eurasian beaver (), the grey seal (), and the muskrat (). One can also find small mammals, such as the Eurasian red squirrel (), the American mink () and the stoat (). The territory of the lynx is much more vast than the park itself, which is therefore not sufficient to protect these animals. Indeed, the population of lynx in the region is decreasing, probably because of habitat fragmentation as a result of European route E4.
With respect to birds, many species are also on the endangered list in Sweden, such as the Siberian jay (), the three-toed woodpecker (), the red-throated loon (), the European honey buzzard (), the rough-legged buzzard (), the greenish warbler (), the red-breasted flycatcher (), the red-backed shrike (), the spotted nutcracker (), the common rosefinch (), and the ortolan bunting ().p. 28 The park also houses important populations of grey-headed woodpeckers (), common cranes (), grey herons (), Eurasian wrens (), Eurasian wrynecks (), and hazel grouse ().