“It would be as if the sky would open up if we got a road,” writes Sven-Erik Stöckel in a letter to Kiruna Municipality in a scene in “The Road to Nowhere”.
After ambitious plans to connect five villages northeast of Torneträsk with the rest of the world, the work stopped abruptly in the 1950s after the military put its foot down. Neither the Swedish nor the Norwegian defense wanted another road from the interior towards Norway with the Russians in mind.
The result was 20 kilometers of dead ends that do not connect to anything.
Börje Salming grew up along the road
The residents consequently have to cross the lake to get to a road that is actually connected to something, with many drowning accidents over the years as a result.
Now the road stump – whose most famous resident was the ice hockey legend Börje Salming – has been documented in “The Road to Nowhere”, which premieres in cinemas today.
See the interview with director Johan Palmgren in the clip.