Giving something back: a letter to the communities we met in Sweden

May 2026 – Vindelälven-Juhttátahkka pilot area

In early May, part of the ArcticKnows team spent a week in the Vindelälven-Juhttátahkka Biosphere Reserve in Västerbotten, Sweden: one of the four pilot areas where the project is working alongside communities to co-create knowledge about regenerative economies.

Over five days we moved through Rusksele, Sorsele, Ammarnäs, Granö and Vindeln. We walked, talked, attended workshops, visited a school, a nature centre, a community hub, a family farm surrounded by forest and water. And we sat around tables for kvällsfika — talking with whoever wanted to come, for as long as the conversation lasted.

When we left, we brought back something we hadn’t fully anticipated: the sense that what looks, from the outside, like scarcity or difficulty is, from the inside, often a form of knowledge and resilience.

We believe that when people share their time and their thinking with a research project, they deserve to hear something back. So we wrote a letter. Not a report, not a set of findings — simply a reflection. An honest attempt to return something to the people who opened their doors and their conversations to us.

We sent it to everyone we met during the week, in both English and Swedish, and invited them to share it within their communities if they wish, and to write back with whatever is on their minds.

You can read the letter here: