Falun Gruva

Hej Hej!

Last weekend B., S. and I drove up to Falun to check out the Falun Copper Mine. Falun is a town of around 55,000 and played a significant role in the history of Sweden.

The copper (and iron, gold and silver) mine is a Unesco World Heritage Site because of its "historical industrial landscape" and because of the fact that mining has been going on at "Copper Mountain" since 500 AD. Can you imagine?????!!!!!

The Mine is both a pit mine (as you can see from the photo) and an underground mine. Originally the miners would mine through firesetting. Setting large fires against the walls of the mine until the rock face would crack. They would then take their hammers and chisels and/or sledgehammers and chip away at the rock until they had some ore to send up to the surface.

Apparently the pit mine used to be three smaller pits but in 1687 an extensive cave-in took place. The galleries and chambers of the mine collapsed down to a depth of 1000 feet along with the rock walls that divided the three pits. Luckily this occurred around midsummer, one of the few times of the year that the miners had off, so not a single person was killed.

The minerals in the water of the mine preserve things very well. In one of the chambers, the staff put a Christmas tree (because the chamber was called the Christmas Gift - due to the fact that a large deposit was found there at Christmas time) five years ago. The tree is dead but it still is green and has all its needles. An even more impressive tale of preservation involves a miner named Mats. Mats was trying to finish up some work one evening and ended up being the last one in the mine. Unfortunately a rock slide occurred and he ended up dying in the mine. Unfortunately no one knew where he had been working so the body wasn't found. Forty two years later in the early 1800s a crew of miners came across a body. They brought it up to the surface and everyone was trying to figure out who this person was. There hadn't been any miners reported missing and the miner looked as though he had only been dead for a few days although his clothes were old-fashioned. The mystery continued until an older lady came up to see what the kerfuffle was about and she exclaimed, "Thats Mats!". He had been her fiance and it was quite a shock to see him so well preserved while she of course had aged. He had taken on some fluids though so he was a bit puffy and today the story of "Fet Mats" (Fat Mats) is in many school books across Europe.

There are over 4000 working sites in the mine and the deepest shaft that still exists is 680 feet deep and is bisected by an enormous wooden wall put in place to protect the pumps behind it. It is presumed to be the world's highest wooden construction. The miners would ride 7-8 at a time standing on the edge of this barrel going down the shaft and then have to swing out to the ledges and walkways and job off. They put up the wall so the barrel didn't hit the pumps on its back swing.



The copper mine was very important to Sweden. The glory days of the Mine coincided with the period during which Sweden was established as a great power. And to a large part this position was financially based on the export of copper from Falun. At times the mine accounted for two thirds of the copper needed in Europe. The mine closed in 1992 but is now a museum and heritage site. In addition from the leftover iron bits they make the famous Falun Red Paint, which you will have seen on some of the houses in my photos! The paint factory is still in operation.



We look a bit like linebackers in these photos, but it was drippy down there so it was nice to have the capes!




Trevlig tisdag!
E.