Abandoned houses of Scandinavia, complementing the beauty of northern nature
Photographer from Norway Britt M (Britt M) made a series of fascinating pictures of abandoned houses in Scandinavia. Mysterious wooden houses, farms and huts stand out against the beautiful northern landscapes of Sweden and Norway.
Author of the project Britt M
She added that she often imagines the difficulties of the family who sought refuge under these roofs, and many possible stories explaining why they had to leave their homes.
Silence and snow. There are no footprints on the path to the front door. The house is located in the Swedish province of Värmland. There are no hints about the last time people lived here or when they disappeared.
Entering the house, the photographer found a bathroom without paint or any other decoration, with a rusty bathtub and an old-fashioned water barrel.
Upstairs in the same house, a dressing table and a wardrobe had been in one of the rooms for ages. If this was the setting of a horror movie, then the mirrors would definitely be haunted by the ghosts of the past.
This simple wooden house with a tin roof is set against the idyllic backdrop of a fjord in Tromsø in northern Norway. For some reason, it has long been abandoned.
This house is located in Estfall, the southernmost region of Norway, adjacent to the Swedish border. This house may have been abandoned due to flooding, judging by its location.
This railway line in Estfall was closed, and the station building in Gautestad remained abandoned.
This picture of a woodcutter's hut in Estfall, Norway, with the most beautiful light was taken when the ground was covered with frost.
Low clouds hang over Troms in northern Norway. In this part of Scandinavia, there are about 60 polar nights a year, when the sun does not come out for a whole day, and this is a very depressing place.
Britt M says: "I was shocked at how many of them there were. Farms, houses, huts, and cottages. All abandoned many years ago, and each tells its own story."
This picture was taken in Värmland, north of Gothenburg, during a short but beautiful Swedish summer.
Troms County is predominantly rural, but the local capital Tromsø is a city of 70,000 people that plays a key role in Norway's oil and gas production in the North Sea.
Many of the homes Britt M came across were abandoned by farmers, fishermen, or forest workers. The remote location of these houses makes repairs or demolition pointless.
This house stands under the dark skies of Akershus in Norway.
Snow lies untouched near two abandoned houses in Buskerud County west of Oslo in Norway.
There is a Swedish magazine on the windowsill of this house in Vermland. Some of the houses had some hints of the reasons why they were abandoned, but they could also be cottages that had become too expensive to maintain.
A street lamp is still lit on the porch of this house in Akershus, Norway, and a child's bicycle stands in front of the door, as if the residents of the house have left the place recently.
Värmland is now a very peaceful place, but 200 years ago there was a Swedish-Norwegian war. Crown Prince Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte attacked Norway in 1814 and made it a Swedish possession.
This picture of a house in Vermland was taken on a frosty morning in early spring.
Breathtaking Norwegian landscapes and giant fjords date back thousands of years. The houses in Troms County, many of which are abandoned, resemble those in the Highlands of Scotland.
Britt M says: "A few years ago, a serious infection broke my immune system, and I had a severe allergic reaction to many things that surround me in everyday life. This made it difficult, almost impossible to communicate or even be in any crowded places. While I was undergoing treatment, I turned to the beautiful Scandinavian nature so that I could have a place where I could breathe freely and take my mind off my health problems."
"I am healthy again and no longer a lonely forest traveler. But I still look for and rent these abandoned houses of Scandinavia. They have become my outlet in a difficult time, and I feel the need to continue telling these stories, to keep them in the present, even though they were left in the past, " says the photographer.
Keywords: Nature | Europe | Houses | Design and architecture | Scandinavia | Photo project | Abandoned buildings