Döda Fallet

"Döda Fallet" as named in Swedish, is an extinct rapid river in Ragunda, that is, in the eastern side of the Jämtland municipality.

The Indalsälven river is born in the Norway mountains and flows through 430 km until Klingerfjärden, in northern Sundsvall. This Indalsälven previously flowed through a long lake named Ragundasjön, and very then inmediately over a waterfall known then as "Storforsen" (The great water rapids).

The wisdom hand of the Industrial Revolution man.

As logging started to emerge as a potential way of bussiness in the late 18th century in Jämtland and all over the forested Northern Sweden, the rivers were used as a matter of "highway" for the timber to be transported, but being the waterfalls and rapids a considerable obstacle for "progress", and Storforsen was no the exception to this "wise" apreciation.

So in 1773, Magnuss Huss, (aka Vildhussen " the wild Huss") a Sundsvall´s local trader, decided to solve this problem by building a channel to avoid or bypass the waterfall, but the work didn´t start until 1776 due to several delays due to sabotage and other reasons.

The night of June 6 suddenly came up an unusual great flood, with an obvious increase in water pressure, wich the channel could not stand with. The channel broke down and the river followed a new unnatural course, draining the Ragundasjön in only four hours of that tragic night, and producing a nearly 15 meters high flood wave, wich made such a great damage for the environment and stablishing the channel as a new part of the river´s course, however, no one is reported to have been killed by such this disaster. The grat amount of sediments and soil dragged and deposited in the Indalsälven delta, led it to become the greatest delta in whole Sweden.

The old Storfors becomes the "Döda Fallet", the Indalsälven was transformed into a navigable river surrounded by fertil soils, and the rock barrier formed in the bottom of the old lake a new waterfall was formed, "Hammerfallen" turned nowadays into a Hydro-electric power plant. VildHussen died a year later drowned in the same river, and is remembered by a statue in the small town of Hammarstrand. (Builded on the former lake bed of Ragundasjön)

Döda Fallet conforms nowadays a natural reserve where you can hike and admire the great and marvelous rocks sculpted by the water. standing beside the waterfalls, there is an open theather able to keep more than 400 visitors.

There are also several churches beside the river, and among them, Lidens kyrka builded in the 16th century, stands on the most beautiful place. It holds within many mediaval sculptures, including a virgin from the 13rd century.

Vildhussen statue in Hammarstrand (pic by wikicommons)

Pics by wikicommons and Hammarbykyrkan.nu