Överbo

“Large forests of pine stand desolate and forlorn, as nobody needs the timer, which falls down and rots away,” wrote Carl Linnaeus during his journey through Lycksele parish in 1732. Today, ancient forests where the trees are allowed to live and die at their own pace, are extremely rare. In Överbo, you can get an idea of what the forests that Linnaeus encountered would have looked like.

Dead trees are alive!

Överbo is a good example of what the Norrland landscape might once have looked like. The forest is virgin coniferous forest. The drier ground is mostly home to pines, whereas spruces grow by the brook and in other damper areas. There are plenty of dead trees here, which are an important resource in the old forest! Even the dead trees are alive. The inner bark is eaten by insects, fungi live off the wood, insects live off fungi, mosses grow on the wood, birds eat the insects in the wood, insects and snails spend the winter in dead wood, ants and bees build homes out of wood, bats sleep in hollow trees and birds build their nests in them.

Forest fires

Most of the forest has grown up after a forest fire that struck at the start of the 18th century. There have subsequently been smaller fires in around 1760 and 1850. Pines with fire scarring in their bark from the most recent fire can be found in the southern part of the reserve. New wood gradually grows over the damage. The odd stump can be seen here and there, traces of the fact that people have cut down individual trees.