Junkön is an island in the northwest of the Swedish sector of the
Bay of Bothnia, 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 smal ...
.
Location
Junkön is one of the larger of the islands offshore from
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 ...
.
It is said to be named after a
Sami
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
named Junker who grazed his reindeer on the island.
The sandy western part of the island has been used by the airforce as a firing range since
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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, and is off limits to civilians.
The eastern part of the island is well-forested, including pines that are over 200 years old.
The Larsgrundet lighthouse is located on a shoal in the channel between the islands of Junkön and
Storbrändön.
It was built in 1965, and was still in operation as of 2013. The focal plane is .
History
The first records of the island date to 1491.
The island would have been quite new then, having formed as the terrain rose due to
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 ...
.
The first permanent resident settled on the island in 1783.
There is a solidly built windmill dating from the late 1700s, in the past used by the residents of Junkön and nearby islands to grind their flour.
It is not certain who built it, but based on its design it may have been a stranded fisherman from Finland.
Since the early 1900s the population has steadily diminished. As of 2013 there were only three resident families.
A number of professional fishermen still make Junkön their base, fishing for
Baltic herring
Atlantic herring (''Clupea harengus'') is a herring in the family Clupeidae. It is one of the most abundant fish species in the world. Atlantic herrings can be found on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, congregating in large schools. They ca ...
,
whitefish and
sea trout
Sea trout is the common name usually applied to anadromous (sea-run) forms of brown trout (''Salmo trutta''), and is often referred to as ''Salmo trutta'' morpha ''trutta''. Other names for anadromous brown trout are sewin (Wales), peel or peal ...
in the summer.
They net a local species of whitefish in the autumn to harvest its roe, which is called the "gold of the sea".
Village
The marina can accommodate about ten boats.
There is a café that opens in the summer, toilets, saunas, showers and drinking water.
The "Junkön fishing village" was inaugurated in 1998, a group of newly built houses in traditional style with an exhibition on life in the islands in the old days.
The
Luleå Municipality has also built a quay, boathouses and a boat motor museum.
Two cottages are available for rent.
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Junkon
Swedish islands in the Baltic
Islands of Norrbotten County