Moskosel: the place with the worst community service in the country

Sune Pettersson, 78, shows us around in her silver gray pickup truck. The birch trees outside the car window have been given a pale yellow hue that contrasts with the dark green pines. Along the way there are desolate houses after desolate houses.

One has completely collapsed, another has lost the color of the wooden facade. On a hill are a couple of empty apartment buildings with the blinds half drawn on several windows.

– There was a grocery store, there was a movie theater, there was a preschool. And there is the fire station that is now for sale.

He was born and raised in the village and today he lives a stone’s throw from his childhood home. When Sune Pettersson was young, around 1,000 people lived in the then-vibrant sawmill town with four grocery stores, a fashion store, a school through high school, and a district nurse.

Much has changed as. The small Lapland community along the Inlandsbanan, located four and a half miles north of Arvidsjaur, today has just under 200 inhabitants, many of them Sune Pettersson’s age.

The pattern can be seen throughout much of the country. As Sweden’s population increases – in 40 years we have grown to two million more – the sparsely populated area is being emptied of its younger inhabitants, who move to large and medium-sized cities in the south and throughout the coasts.

Muskosel is one of hundreds of small towns that have lost much of their population in the last 50 years. In Kristineberg in Västerbotten, Karlsborg in Norrbotten and Röfors in Närke, the population has declined by more than 70 percent since 1970; in Moskosel the figure is 68 percent, according to the Hem och hyra newspaper.

Depopulation puts pressure both the inhabitants and the municipalities. The fewer people living in a locality, the more difficult it will be for businesses, schools and other businesses to survive, making life on the site difficult.

In the Home and Rent review, Moskosel and Porjus, who is also in Lapland, received the worst ratings in terms of community service. The nearest grocery store, restaurant, postal agent, systems company and school are located in Arvidsjaur, 40 minutes away by car.

About two hundred meters from Sune Pettersson’s home, Stefan Isaksson, 34, and his two sons Hardy, 7, and Sälla Isaksson, 9, live in a former preschool building. When DN is visiting, Stefan makes gravy and macaroni while Hardy watches a Lego movie on TV.

The family gets up every morning at a quarter past five to go to Arvidsjaur, where Stefan’s work and the boys’ school are located. The 34-year-old is a caretaker for the Church of Sweden, and when he’s not working, Sälla and Hardy can take the school bus, which leaves at seven o’clock.

– After work I pick them up and then we go home to cook, so we don’t have time to do much after we have eaten before it is time to sleep so they have the strength to get up, says Stefan Isaksson.

He loves Moskosel and the proximity to nature, but Hardy doesn’t like it that much.

– It’s boring here. I would have preferred to live in Arvidsjaur.

The school in Moskosel It has closed in stages and in 2013 the primary school finally stopped working. The reason was that it was not possible to find staff and that the children became very few.

Sune Pettersson is angry that he has become what he has become. According to him, and several other Moskoselsbor, the depopulation is due in part to the fact that the municipality abandoned the site and that all services have disappeared.

They decided to act themselves.

Since the Arvidsjaur municipality did not want the villagers to open a digital country store in the city’s former school building, they decided to apply for EU funding to do so elsewhere in Moskosel.

We parked the car outside what will be the new meeting place in the area: Spånhålan. Inside the faluröda building, there is full activity. There are covering paper and sanding machines on the floor, Peder Johansson paints the walls white while Eva Granström and Britt-Inger Lindgren show us around.

– There has been a lot of support and many want to help, says Britt-Inger Lindgren.

The building rises next to the gas station on the rural road between Jokkmokk and Arvidsjaur. But this has not always been the case. This summer, the 306-square-meter one-story house was transported three kilometers through the village. It was originally built as an office for the local sawmill and was located on a hill a little outside of the community.

The chip hole will house a service point, a meeting place and a digital store of the country. Eva Granström takes us to the corner room closest to the parking lot, where the store will be.

– It should be possible to enter the store with a bank ID or a key. It must be unmanned and will be open 24 hours a day.

Villagers hope the store will make life in Moskosel more attractive.

At the same time, the cultural couple Linda Remahl and Goncalo Rodrigues Marques have received support from the municipality to take over the former property of the school and open a form of house of culture and “creative laboratory”.

When DN visits the brick-red school building, minimalist piano music plays over the speakers. Hungarian artist Balint Holecz sits at a table working on his computer. He is in a so-called residence and will live in the village for a couple of months.

– Ideally, we wanted a collaboration with the village group, but they weren’t interested, says Linda Remahl.

In several of the classrooms Works of art by local and international artists are on display and at the back of the house the couple are building a series of smaller cabins that they intend to rent.

The hope is that the project will turn Moskosel into a visitor destination, where freelancers and creative people can go to work and enjoy nature, which in turn can create jobs in the area.

– It is a trend today that the largest companies want to go to intensive workshops where they live and work together. You can focus on work and enjoy nature, says Goncalo Rodrigues Marques.

The municipality views both projects in a positive light. Although the villagers were not allowed to take over the school building, they also provided financial support for the country’s trade. City Councilor Sara Lundberg (S) hopes the two institutions will strengthen the village.

– As for the school, it was a contest on which project would mean the most for the development of the place. So those who managed to take over the school won.

Lundberg regrets that development has been as it has been in Moskosel, but says it is difficult to prevent the service from disappearing, because many people move from there.

– Those who run service facilities commercially need a certain customer base. It is difficult to put it together any other way. And we cannot order development.

It is possible that slow down urbanization and get people to move to sparsely populated areas? Charlotta Mellander, an economics professor at Jönköping International Business School, has researched regional development and believes it will be difficult for Moskosel.

– The smaller the place and the further away it is, the less likely it is to grow. There are those who choose to settle in the countryside, but then it is mainly close to larger cities.

She perceives that the political vision that “all of Sweden should live” has so far turned out to be mostly empty talk. According to her, it is more realistic for the state and politicians to focus on making it possible to live in sparsely populated areas for those who want it, than to wait for the trend to reverse.

– In many places, it is very difficult to reverse the trend.

But the people of Moskosel are hopeful for the future. The plan is for Spånhålan to open in October, and then there will be a party for the whole town.

– The store and the school will promote the town. But Rome wasn’t built in a day. Everything takes time, says Tage Lidström.