Skogen, Naturreservat

The forest is a small hilly and hilly reserve. It has beech forest, mixed coniferous forest and a swamp forest with alder. The reserve has an exciting history and there are remains of several homes from the 19th century. In the reserve there is a trail of 1.3 kilometers that passes both bogs and croft environments.
At the beginning of the last century, the two small farms Skogen and Ekehult were located within the reserve, each on its own parcel, surrounded by small cultivation ladders, hayfields and pastures. There were four other crofts in the neighborhood and together they formed a small village located in the inner parts of Okome parish. It is estimated that 70-80 people lived here at the end of the 19th century.

The village is abandoned

But the population declined rapidly in the following years. Emigration left its mark here too, and many of the inhabitants emigrated to America. The village never managed to recover. Today, the farms have long been abandoned, lying in ruins apart from a well-preserved building at Skogen. The village has been called "the village without a name" or "the lost forest village".

Since the last inhabitant died in the 1920s, the forest has slowly closed in around the foundations of the houses. Under the forest's green blanket of leaves and moss you will find cairns and stone walls. Where the walls once stood, carpets of evergreens, willow and hazel, as well as wild strawberries and other herbs, now flourish.

Forest marked by grazing

The reserve is slightly undulating and hilly. Pure beech forest grows on the higher hilltops, but there are also mixed forests with older beech and spruce, swampy alder forest and alder swamps within the reserve's boundaries. Many of the older beech trees are multi-stemmed, branching from the base (bouquet beech) or a little higher up the trunk (candelabra beech), indicating that the forest was grazed when the trees began to grow. Alternatively, these beech trees may have been shaped by the regular collection of wood and twigs for domestic use by the villagers.

The reserve also contains large and coarse but long-dead junipers, which means that the forest was probably more open and grazed in the past. The age of the oldest beech trees can be estimated at around 150 years, but most are younger than that. The Boa church trail, which runs between Boa and Okome, passes just south of the reserve.

New residents move in

The forest is currently overgrown and the lack of thinning over a long period of time has created plenty of coarse dead wood, especially beech and spruce. This has meant that the site has high nature conservation values. A number of inhabitants have settled in the old trees and dead wood. The giant sponge moth butterfly has found a home in the lint thickets that adorn dying or dead beech trunks. On old beech trunks, even the red-listed corn band moss forms fur-like mats.

The dead trees have also benefited many bird species that look for insects and larvae in the wood. For example, the woodpecker, green wren, great spotted woodpecker and lesser spotted woodpecker nest in the reserve and its immediate surroundings.

Trails in the reserve

The wilderness trail (the red route) is a trail that runs through Kålabro, Skogen, Bergs naturskog and Boa and in several private areas. It is a total of about 12 km but can be divided into two trail halves of 6 km each. Parking for those who want to walk on the trail is available in the Forest Nature Reserve, see directions under the heading "Find here" below.

You can also drive past Skogens parking lot and there you take the next road to the left. Follow this to the end where there is a turnaround that you can stand at. It is important to keep well to the edges so that others can also turn around and get through. There is also a parking lot at Bergs naturskogs parking lot.

There is also a blue loop in Skogens nature reserve and into Kålabro nature reserve which is 1.3 km.