Kölarna, Naturreservat

Fancy a skiing trip on a spring winter's day with fresh snow? Then the Kölarnas nature reserve is well worth a visit. Here you will find wilderness with a fascinating mosaic of moors and traces of old-time farming.

Kölarna Nature Reserve is located on a high plateau (a keel) at the county border with Dalarna. The reserve is part of one of the county's largest forest and mire areas and, together with the neighboring reserve Åskakskölen, extends over several thousand hectares. The area is a varied wetland landscape with many small lakes and watercourses and with land where there are old, damp spruce forests that have grown slowly and pine forests marked by previous forest fires.

The habitats in the area form a mosaic where mires are interspersed with wooded mainland islets, here and there quite untouched, as well as ponds and flarkgölar. A flarkgöl is a small body of water whose surface is always covered by a water mirror. Flarkgölar are structures found in sloping bogs in the northern part of Sweden.

Many of the forests in the area have traces of old forest fires in the form of fire stumps and fire noises, a type of damage that occurs when the tree is affected by high heat and the bark falls off.

Traces of forestry, pastoral life and hunting

Man has also left his mark here. Throughout history, forestry has been carried out in the area and the mires have been used for haymaking and as pasture for livestock. Out on the moor, there are traces of two old settlements. There are also old trapping pits used for hunting, and remains of coal and iron production.