Rivers, rafts & rewilding in Sweden’s Nordic Taiga

Northbound for nature

At the start of June, having travelled 500 kilometres north from Stockholm on a sleeper train, I arrived in the city of Umeå ready for a week of adventure in the Nordic Taiga. I was one of a handful of willing guinea pigs drafted in to test a new trip developed by Daniel Allen-Hörnfeldt of Rewilding Sweden and Marcus Eldh of tour company Wild Sweden.

I’m not sure I needed much convincing. The itinerary promised packrafting along wild waterways, hiking through forests, camping under the stars, and cooking over open fires. And if that didn’t already sound enticing enough, we’d also be getting our hands dirty (or in this case wet) by rewilding a stretch of river. “Sign me up,” I remember thinking before I’d even reached the end of the proposed itinerary.

Less than 24 hours after strolling beneath the bright lights of the Swedish capital, I found myself standing in a circle with 11 strangers, surrounded by tall birches and gnarled pines, listening to Marcus explain how to inflate our packrafts for the start of our adventure. Behind us, the Hjuksån River — also a stranger for now — sparkled invitingly in the sunshine, distracting me from the practicalities I was supposed to be learning.

Once everyone was packed and ready, we carried our boats, paddles, and essential supplies down to the water’s edge. In my case, that meant a dry bag full of expensive camera gear — I did have to keep reminding myself that I was there to work — and a handful of cereal bars to keep me going along the way. Spare clothes were sacrificed in the hope that I’d absorbed enough of the safety briefing to stay afloat, despite my wandering attention. Fortunately, the Wild Sweden minivan would transfer the rest of our belongings to the evening’s campsite. An unexpected luxury!

After weeks of anticipation, we finally slipped into the river.  My fingertips brushed the cool water as the current began to carry us downstream — our fates now tied to the Hjuksån for the next few days. We were off.

Going with the flow

Packrafting was new to me, but I’d spent enough time kayaking and canoeing back home in Scotland to know that I love travelling this way. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. And it allows you to experience a landscape in a completely different way to when you’re traversing it by foot.

Packrafts have another advantage too: they’re designed to be inflated and deflated at will, allowing you to switch between hiking and paddling — think travelling like a frog, rather than a fish. The wildlife doesn’t really know what to make of you either — and with that, you seem to be able to get closer to the action. Over many years of waterborne travel, I’ve crept up on kingfishers, surprised herons, and been ogled by otters.

The river quickly widened into a lake-like expanse. Reeds fringed the shore, punctuated by the bright yellow blooms of marsh marigold and the star-shaped flowers of bog bean. Along the banks, the verdant greens of spring birches towered over us, with Scots pines standing sentinel behind them. Beaver lodges appeared at regular intervals, while miniature flotillas of goldeneye ducklings escorted us and greenshanks flew overhead.

As we drifted downstream, conversations began to flow as easily as the river itself. Daniel explained we’d be travelling through a “productive landscape” — in other words, a landscape heavily influenced by commercial forestry. But looking around, it was hard to tell.

Sweden is one of Europe’s most forested countries, with woodland covering around 70% of its land area. Yet roughly 84% of those forests are managed for timber production. This is one of the key reasons that rewilding is so important here. While the forests may appear wild at first glance, much of the landscape has been heavily shaped by people.

The same is true of the rivers. During the twentieth century, many were straightened and deepened, their boulders removed, and in extreme cases, wooden panels laid down on the riverbed, to speed the transport of felled timber from inland forests to coastal sawmills. Today, roads and railways have largely replaced rivers as timber transport routes. And it is this shift that has created a remarkable opportunity: to restore these waterways and allow them to function as wild rivers once again.

A night under the stars

Having paddled the six kilometres of our first day — with a welcome stop for coffee and cinnamon buns along the way (I’ve just remembered how good those cinnamon buns were!) — we eventually reached our campsite for the night.

Soon, tents and tipis were springing up among the trees. Hammocks appeared between trunks, while the hardier members of the group simply wrapped bivvy bags around their sleeping bags and nestled down amongst the moss and wild blueberry bushes. It already felt a million miles from Stockholm.

Campsite tasks were split between us, and here’s where the feeling of being strangers began to melt away. Philip started the fire, Maxim got the burgers going, Kim grilled the halloumi, Benji cooled the beers. And me? I somehow got lumbered with the washing up. Given the amount of time I’d spent lingering at the back with my camera, it was probably a fair division of labour.

Having fallen asleep to the sound of a roding woodcock overhead, I awoke to the gentle beat of Marcus tapping his drum. It was time for campfire porridge and tea before taking to the water again. With everyone soon packed, we set off on the increasingly familiar Hjuksån. The river was slowly becoming less of an outsider, and much more of a companion. We learned how to navigate rock-filled rapids, when to let the current take the lead, and the best time to float and drift in moments of calm.

One of the most memorable moments of the second day came as we navigated a stretch of rapids through a corridor of trees. Concentration levels were high each of us picked a route through the churning water. Then, suddenly, the water slowed, the trees fell away, and the sky opened out.

Little gulls, their jet-black heads striking against the bright sky, wheeled overhead. Redshank piped from the banks. The river, along with its travellers, wound its way through the wetlands before spilling into a lake. A pair of cranes tumbled from the sky with their distinctive trumpeting calls, while the sighting of an elk (or moose, if you prefer) sent excitement rippling through the group. For a few moments it stood watching us, trying to work out what it was seeing, before retreating into the forest. This was the Okavango in all but name — an oasis amongst a forest desert.

Acting like an ice age

Following a restful night beneath the trees, we awoke to find that the elk had returned, seemingly intent on joining us for breakfast. Our menus differed slightly, however, as it browsed contentedly on aspen and willow, while we gathered around mugs of coffee and bowls of porridge. Unable to resist one final immersion in this watery world, I slipped into the river for a wild swim before we moved on to the day’s next activities.

I’d helped myself to an extra serving of porridge that morning, as we planned to meet Isak, Amanda, and the rest of the Rewilding Sweden team to get stuck into some river rewilding. We were planning to return a few tonnes of gravel to the Hjuksån — something that had been missing since the engineering works of the past had seen riverbed sediment flushed away by unnaturally fast currents.

Isak’s instructions were simple: the 12 of us were to collectively act like an ice age. Over thousands of years, glaciers had naturally ground down rock, transported vast quantities of gravel, and reshaped riverbeds here as they retreated. Without our help, he explained, the river would have to wait for the next ice age to perform the same task. That was how important this work was.

With this thought fresh in our minds, it felt good to be a part of something that mattered. This wasn’t superficial — something designed to tick a box and send us home feeling virtuous. It was real and necessary. We formed a chain from the pile of gravel at the top, down a steep bank, and into the river. Bucket after bucket, splash after splash, we restored the river’s once sediment-laden bed — creating new habitats that would be colonised by algae, fed on by invertebrates, and used by salmon and trout as spawning grounds.

Fishy business

Speaking of trout, this was to be the grand finale of what had been an incredible few days. Not only were we restoring habitat, we were also taking part in a wildlife reintroduction — and we had 65,000 baby fish to release. Tiny brown trout fry, each no more than three centimetres long, had been brought to the river from a local hatchery in huge black sacks. Once again, with plenty to carry and the need to keep the fish cool, our strength in numbers proved invaluable. We lined the riverbanks, scooping our soon-to-be-free passengers into buckets and gently releasing them into shady, rocky refuges along the channel.

Their new home? A freshly restored section of the Hjuksån — first transformed by excavators returning boulders to the river, and then enhanced by our own efforts as we rebuilt gravel beds by hand. Watching thousands of tiny trout disappear into the clear water felt like the perfect conclusion to the week. Sixty-five thousand reasons to believe our work had made a meaningful difference.

Where travel meets restoration

There’s always been some debate about what rewilding tourism really is. Where does it fit into an increasingly complex world of sustainable travel, eco-tours, and other nature-friendly buzzwords designed to give the feel-good factor to potential travellers? This trip had certainly felt different. Was it enjoyable, immersive, and adventurous? Yes. Did I leave feeling like I’d done something good for the planet? Absolutely. Did it change how I think about travel? Without question.

This trip was what rewilding tourism should be about. Exploring new places, learning new things, meeting new people, seeing an ecosystem rather than just a landscape, and connecting with nature in a profound way. Knowing you’ve managed to actually leave a place better than you found it, even in some small way, is something you rarely experience when travelling.

It’s hard to pin down my favourite moment of a trip that was genuinely exceptional — and maybe I shouldn’t try. Rewilding is about the whole, after all — the intricate web of relationships between species, habitats, and natural processes. In the same way, it feels wrong to pull apart an experience that worked so well as a complete tapestry of people, places, and moments.

I left Sweden thinking deeply about what I’d experienced: the new friends I’d made, the stretch of waterway I’d helped to rewild, the river I’d gotten to know — and hoped to see again. And after 12 kilometres of paddling, a few tonnes of gravel shifted, and 65,000 trout released, it’s safe to say the sleeper train back to Stockholm gave me the best night’s sleep I’d had in years.

The packrafting trip enjoyed by James launches in 2027 on Wilder Places, Rewilding Europe’s travel booking platform — which also offers nature enthusiasts and adventurous travellers myriad other unique, rewilding-related experiences from across the continent.