It has never felt impossible

Emilia moved to Boden to learn to drive a tractor in the armed forces and stayed. Here she has found her närhetsliv with jobs, friends and roaring engines in beautiful nature just a short distance from home.

When Emilia Lindmark, 20, graduated from GMU last spring, she was asked about permanent employment with the Armed Forces. She was unsure at first.

– But I quickly realized that I would rather stay than leave. It was a lot that attracted, many fun exercises during the autumn, I have my apartment and I have gained a social life and a life here, she says.

She thrives with the small town feeling where everyone knows everyone, where you always greet someone when you go into town. Here she has 50 meters to the grocery store, 200 meters to work and close both to the gym and to main interest; motocross track.

– I work with my best friends and it is an incredible security. But thanks to motorsport, I have made civilian friends as well, she says.

Growing interest in motors

In the winter it is snowmobiling and in the summer it is motocross.

– Four years ago I had to test a friend’s snowmobile in the backyard and I just: “why have I never done this before?”

She started motocross last summer. For the winter, the plan is to start jumping with the snowmobile and next summer she will start competing in motocross. In both disciplines, Emilia is about challenging her boundaries and advancing technically, with the help of tips and advice from friends.

– When I put on the helmet, everything else disappears. It’s a special feeling, you do not think of anything other than right there and then. It’s full focus and adrenaline, I can fall and hit myself and it does not even hurt. It’s the feeling I long for on a bad day.

She likes to ride motocross on Boden’s motocross track and with the snowmobile she prefers to ravage around the forest around here. She plays, takes photos and gets stuck in the powder snow.

– The worst thing there is to get stuck but it is very fun afterwards when you can laugh about it with your friends, she says.

Goes her own way

Motor interest is often inherited in families, but not for Emilia. During her upbringing in Sollefteå, no one else in the family was interested in engines, not Emilia either. Not until recent years.

– I have gone my own way. In her teens, she had a boyfriend who worked with snow removal and Emilia was attracted to that to the point that she got up with him and hung out, in the middle of the night.

“Hello! I want to drive a tractor! ”. That is what Emilia said on the basic military training. And it was the first time that the recruiters had that happen, she has been told afterwards. She received the happy news of the admission shortly afterwards and went straight to a tattoo parlor to immortalize the text line “If you can dream it, you can do it”, on her skin. That has become her motto.

– I am the first and only girl in the wheel loader group. But I have never been afraid, it has never felt impossible. How do you know if you are not testing?

Snow plowing as therapy

Emilia currently works as a machine operator on A9 and drives wheel loaders. She plows snow for the entire regiment and also drives a truck with a trailer.

– Plowing is the most fun I know. I am so careful and would never leave an inch of fresh snow. It’s so calm to sit and lever, it’s like therapy.

But she also has more interests.

– I love makeup, hair and clothes. But I’m not afraid to get dirty. I can just as easily lie under an engine or run over a bog.

She has a tip for other girls who are considering starting to drive a snowmobile, motocross or do basic military training.

– Do not hesitate.

@ 3milialindmark