It’s 5:45 PM and there’s a shuttle of black and gold-clad football players heading towards Bossevallen. Two of them are Loke and Loui, along with their parents Ulrika and Lennie.
They have moved here from Salem, south of Stockholm, after searching for a house in Svartbjörnsbyn for a long time. They were so certain and determined to live in Björns that the children were enrolled in school and they joined Svartbjörnsbyns IF even before moving. The family was already living there in spirit, and they wanted to get the most out of the local life.
During the short walk from the house to Bossevallen, we note that they are close to football practice.
— Yes, that’s the wonderful thing about moving here, everything is close by, says Ulrika.
INTEGRATED INTO COMMUNITY LIFE
They also highly value getting involved in community life so early. The children get a good foothold in the community, meet friends, and have an active leisure time. When it’s not green grass fields, the children put on their hockey equipment and hang out at the ice rink instead.
Lennie, who will soon also start as an assistant coach for the team, got to introduce the Norrbotten locals to the hockey bag with wheels, sort of like a larger shopping cart, used to roll equipment to and from hockey practices. No one up here had seen one with wheels before.
— Now some have even mounted a snow plow on the front of it, says Lennie and laughs.
— Loke was a bit nervous before his first day of school when he was about to start, worried that he wouldn’t make new friends and so on. But already after the first school day, he comes home with sparkling eyes saying he’s made lots of friends, the parents recount.
Now there’s a lot of sports in their free time. Right after football practice at Bossevallen, they continue kicking the ball on the lawn at home. Either just within the family or with friends who spontaneously come to visit.
SAFETY IS a BIG DIFFERENCE
When we discuss the biggest differences between Salem and Boden, it’s mentioned that it was an odd sight to see people taking snowmobiles to the grocery store, and that most things are closed on Sundays. But the biggest difference is the sense of safety.
— We’ve moved a lot for the children’s sake. It’s a calmer environment, they can cycle out in the evenings, they can go to friends’ houses as they like, and take the bus to town or hockey practices. Where we lived before, we felt we couldn’t let the children go out freely on bikes or use public transport.
— Also, there are never any traffic jams, Lennie adds. We used to commute along ‘Sweden’s longest parking lot’ and drive two miles in two hours. Here you can get around, everything is close, and you get so much time for other things that you would otherwise have spent on commuting.
Ulrika works at a trade union and Lennie is a facility worker for the municipality. Something that also ‘just worked out’ when they moved here. Ulrika could switch offices within the same position, and Lennie sent in a spontaneous application in an industry he had previously worked in, and got a job almost immediately.
Apart from a Zlatan poster on the wall in the kitchen at home, Gyökeres is of course an idol for the boys. A well-known goal celebration pose ended the evening before we parted ways.
Welcome to Boden!
TEXT: ROBIN SÖDERLUND
