Hindersön is an island in the northwest of the Swedish sector of the

Bay of Bothnia The Bothnian Bay or Bay of Bothnia (; ) is the northernmost part of the Gulf of Bothnia, which is in turn the northern part of the Baltic Sea. The land holding the bay is Post-glacial rebound, still rising after the weight of ice-age glaciers has ...

, in the

Luleå archipelago The Luleå archipelago ( sv, Luleå Skärgård or ''Lule Skärgård'') is a group of Swedish islands in the north part of the Bay of Bothnia. They lie offshore from the city of Luleå and the mouth of the Lule River. A few of the islands have sma ...

Location

Hindersön is one of the largest of the islands in the Luleå Archipelago. It is about east of central

Luleå Luleå ( , , locally ; smj, Luleju; fi, Luulaja) is a city on the coast of northern Sweden, and the capital of Norrbotten County, the northernmost county in Sweden. Luleå has 48,728 inhabitants in its urban core (2018) and is the seat of Lu ...

. The island includes old farms and fishing ports. The school building and teacher's residence have been modernized for use for conferences and for rental accommodation. In winter the island can be accessed via an

ice road An ice road or ice bridge is a human-made structure that runs on a frozen water surface (a river, a lake or a sea water expanse).Masterson, D. and Løset, S., 2011, ISO 19906: Bearing capacity of ice and ice roads, Proceedings of the 21st Inte ...

, the longest in Sweden at . It runs from Hindersöstallarna on the mainland to the islands of Hindersön,

Stor-Brändön Stor-Brändön is an island in the northwest of the Swedish sector of the Bay of Bothnia, in the Luleå archipelago. Location Stor-Brändön is one of the larger islands of the Luleå archipelago, with nine permanent residents as of 2013. It is ...

and

Långön Långön is an island in the northwest of the Swedish sector of the Bay of Bothnia, in the Luleå archipelago. Description Långön is a relatively large island in the Luleå archipelago, with an area of . It lies to the north of Stor-Brändön a ...

. Normally the road is open from January to April. Vehicle weight restrictions apply.

Environment

Hindersön is made up of three smaller islands that have grown together through as the land rose through

post-glacial rebound Post-glacial rebound (also called isostatic rebound or crustal rebound) is the rise of land masses after the removal of the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression. Post-glacial rebound a ...

. The island names are preserved in Hindersön for the central part, Björkön for the eastern part and Gräsön for the western part. Hindersön is largely covered by spruce forest. There is also pine forest and open sandy regions. Smaller plants include wild strawberries, brambles and lily of the valley. Arctic raspberries, the rare Siberian primrose and ghost orchid may also be found. There are small sandy beaches on the northern tip of Holmberg and Hanno Bay. The fauna is typical of the Luleå archipelago. Hares are common.

Osprey The osprey (''Pandion haliaetus''), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown o ...

s nest on the island.

History

The name of the island is from "Hinders", an old form of "Henry". It may be named after Henry, bishop of Finland, the medieval patron saint of

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

. Hindersön has good conditions for agriculture and is surrounded by productive fishing waters. In the past seals were plentiful and were hunted by the first settlers. There are records of occupation on the island from 1543, when four homesteads were recorded. Settlers had probably arrived some time before. A record from 1559 gave 30 people, four horses, 21 cows, six heifers, 25 sheep, eleven goats and two pigs divided between the four homesteads. At the time of the 1851-56 land reform the island had eight homesteads. Iron ore was found in 1842, and was mined at different times thereafter. The iron ore mine was opened in the 1870s by a professor Anders Fornander, who built a stone memorial to himself. Gunpowder was used in mining before dynamite was discovered. The granite powder magazine has been restored and may be seen at Oxgrundet when travelling by boat through "Västisundet". Lime was quarried for local use, and later an industrial lime kiln was built just northeast of Hannosviken. The kiln has been restored. By 1930 the population peaked at 148. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

ended in 1945 the population steadily declined, with shops and then the school being closed. Today about thirty full-time residents remain.

References

Sources * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hinderson Swedish islands in the Baltic Islands of Norrbotten County