Canoe trip in Sweden: 7 days of self-sufficient adventure

To complete this canoe trip, we decided to experience it with Värmlandsgården, an outdoor adventure center that offers many canoe trip packages, mountain bike rentals, paddle rentals, and also a large campsite located between two lakes in the middle of the Värmland County.

Värmlandsgården offers various packages for their canoe trips, and we chose the Northern Berslag Canoe tour which will take us 105km across the surrounding lakes for 7 days.

Each formula includes its level of challenge, there are some for the most adventurous as well as for families, it's just up to you to choose the one that suits you best!

Each canoe rental includes the boat, paddles, a waterproof container and the maps with the tour route accompanied by a description of each stage.

Departing from Brussels, we chose to fly to Oslo-Gardermoen Airport in Norway.

We chose Oslo Airport because it was the closest by car to Värmlandsgården.
It is also possible to land in Stockholm or Oslo and travel by train and bus to Hagfors (the closest town to Värmlandsgården), from where a shuttle will take you to the canoe trip base camp.
If you choose this option, it will take 2 extra days on your trip for the journeys.

To save time, we chose to rent a car on site to get to the starting point, and for this we used the platform Getaround.

Getaround a car-sharing platform of vehicles made available by individuals or professionals and available in several European countries (Belgium, France, Spain, United Kingdom, Norway, Austria and Germany) and in the United States.

Car rental from individual to individual is an alternative more environmentally friendly to classic car rental platforms, and offers much more attractive prices.

During a canoe trip one of the biggest challenges is to bring enough supplies without being too overloaded, because every gram carried will have to be transported in the canoe or carried during some transfers on land.

So we chose to go with hiking backpacks that will contain all our belongings and our food for the 7 days of adventure.

The adventure being done in total autonomy, we have selected the camping equipment most optimized in terms of space/comfort. 
For the tent, we chose the self-standing 2-person Azimut outdoor treka 2 ul tent available at Chullanka which has the advantage of offering a space large enough for 2 people all for a weight of only 2kg and a small footprint.

For the mattress, we chose the Exped 3r Mummy, which provides excellent cold protection for a weight of 465 grams in its largest version (Necessary for Romain's 194cm height 😅).

For the sleeping bag, the Wilsa trail 600 combined with a meat bag Sea to Summit which, for an early September trip, were warm enough for comfortable nights as long as the temperature didn't drop below 8 degrees, which happened once. So if you're a bit cold-natured, we recommend a slightly warmer sleeping bag.

For cooking, a gas stove and a pot that isn't too bulky will be perfectly sufficient. You can even consider not taking a stove and cooking with firewood every night.

As for the rest, the dilemma with clothes is to bring enough without being too encumbered in the canoe. We chose to take enough underwear for the week, a short and a pair of pants, a short-sleeved merino t-shirt, a long-sleeved merino t-shirt, and 2 fleece jackets.
In case of rain, we also advise you to bring a poncho-style rain cape to protect yourself on the canoe (and a rain cover for your backpack).

As shoes, we left with hiking boots, which we used in the evenings at the campsites and during the walking transfers between the lakes, and very useful water shoes when you need to get out and put the canoe in the water, but also for swimming in the lakes.

We were lucky with the weather and were always in shorts/t-shirts on the canoe and only put on warm clothes in the morning and evening at camp to warm up and protect ourselves from mosquitoes.

Taking food with you to be self-sufficient for 7 days while limiting weight and bulk is a real challenge! We decided to prepare a sample menu that we would follow every day.

Breakfast consisted of granola (with powdered milk if needed) with tea or coffee.

At 10am, we ate a protein bar which kept us going until noon when we ate crackers that we spread with this famous tube food so popular in Sweden. The taste wasn't terrible, but it was enough to fill our stomachs until 4pm when we had a little frangipane or a chocolate biscuit for comfort.

In the evening, we had planned rehydrated meals from Summit to eat, ideal for this kind of adventure, compact, nutritious, and ultimately very good.

As it is impossible to bring enough water for 7 days, we bought filter bottles from Katadyn with which we were able to drink lake water without any risk of getting sick!

Find Katadyn bottles on Amazon

Our adventure begins at Sundsjöns, about ten kilometers from Värmlandsgården, where we were dropped off in a van with canoes on a trailer by an employee of Värmlandsgården.

A few quick explanations later, and we're on our first lake. A fairly short crossing in terms of distance, which mainly allowed us to get familiar with the boats. Maneuvering a double canoe isn't so easy at first, but we quickly get the hang of it and arrive at our first transfer.

Transfers are these passages between the lakes, you have to get out of the water with the canoe, put it on its wheels and walk to the next lake to cross.

During the Northern Berslag Canoe tour, the distance covered during the transfers varies between 50m and 4 km with a total of 13 transfers.

The beauty of a canoe trip lies mainly in the disconnection and the life in the heart of nature. During 7 days you will have the chance to enjoy nature and only nature. You will hardly meet anyone, or any shops, and you will sometimes spend entire days without encountering a village.

In total we spent 5 days on the canoe, we had a little misjudged our pace and the distance covered each day and therefore returned to base camp with two days to spare. This is perhaps the only mistake we made during our canoe trip, it was to have a too fast pace and not always fully enjoyed the days by taking the time to relax at the campsites.

Generally, it is important to not stress about not finishing the tour on time, even by paddling at 3 km/h (which is a really cool pace) you will need to navigate about 5 hours/day to reach the objective, which doesn't represent so much time on a whole day.

In short, the canoe trip is a once-in-a-lifetime experience if you love travel and discovery with a little bit of adventure!

If you have any questions about this adventure, feel free to leave a comment below this article!