Kramfors: where Sweden fired on its own workers

On the Ångermanälven River in central Sweden, Kramfors holds the memory of one of the most dramatic episodes in Swedish labor history.

A car is particularly helpful for exploring the valley surroundings.

The moving Lunde Memorial, in the nearby village of Ådalen, commemorates workers killed by the military during a famous and dramatic strike in 1931, an event that changed Swedish modern politics forever.

A few minutes away, the vast Ångermanälven River, with its forested banks, remains an enduring symbol of the pulp industry that dominated the valley for decades.

Proceeding toward the coast, one reaches the High Coast with truly spectacular views of the Gulf of Bothnia from the surrounding heights.

As evening approaches, local restaurants serve fresh river fish according to the ancient culinary tradition of central Sweden.

The tragic Ådalen shootings of 1931, in which the Swedish army killed five demonstrators during a workers' strike, shocked profoundly the entire national public opinion and contributed to the rise of the Swedish social democratic movement in the following years.

Kramfors, grown around the pulp industry along the Ångermanälven river, remains today an important symbol of the industrial workers' memory of all twentieth-century Sweden.