Most mountain villages sit where they sit because somebody built a lift. Hemavan sits where it sits because the terrain lets you through.
The village occupies a passage. To the north the Syterskalet valley opens up, a long corridor running in between the mountains, and that is where the Kungsleden trail goes. In the other direction the road follows the valley down towards Tärnaby and on towards Norway. It is a pass, and that is why such a small village has both an airfield and a trunk road.
One end of Kungsleden
The Kungsleden trail runs between Abisko in the north and Hemavan in the south. The Swedish Tourist Association, which laid out the trail in the early twentieth century, gives the distance as 450 kilometres. Other sources say 440. The difference comes down to where you count the ends, and to the fact that the route has been rerouted over the years.
The trail passes four national parks: Abisko, Stora Sjöfallet, Sarek and Pieljekaise. The final stage, Ammarnäs to Hemavan, is 78 kilometres.
Whether Hemavan is the beginning or the end is a matter of taste. More people walk north to south, but anyone starting here gets Syterskalet immediately, which is a better first day than most.
Sweden's largest nature reserve
The whole area lies within the Vindelfjällen nature reserve. It was established in 1974 and today covers 564,918 hectares, making it Sweden's largest nature reserve and one of the largest protected areas in Europe.
Hectares are hard to picture, so think of it this way instead: the reserve is slightly larger than the entire county of Halland. Its highest point is Norra Sytertoppen at 1,768 metres.
Syterskalet
The valley itself is what makes the place unexpected. Syterskalet is a classic U-shaped valley, gouged out by ice, with steep sides and a flat floor. You walk in it, not over it, and the mountains stand straight up on both sides.
It is also that shape which makes Hemavan unusually rewarding to render in relief. A rounded mountain ridge easily becomes an even wave once scaled down. A U-shaped valley keeps its character: it reads as a shadow running right through the square, and the eye follows it automatically.
The winter half of the year
Hemavan and neighbouring Tärnaby are also ski resorts, and Tärnaby is the home town of several of the best-known Swedish alpine racers of all time. The terrain is the same all year, which is the point: the same valley that carries the Kungsleden trail in August carries ski tracks in March.
It is something we think about when choosing a window. A piece that only shows the lift system ages with the resort. A piece that shows the terrain does not.
The window
On our Hemavan piece the village, the airfield and the slopes sit in one corner, Norra Sytertoppen in the other and Syterskalet between them. So both the built and the unbuilt are in the same frame.
To read more about how a window is chosen there is the walk-through of the whole process. And further south along the range sits Helags, with Sweden's southernmost glacier.