It is fair to claim that Sweden's current wealth was more or less founded on iron and steel, and in particular mining of iron ore and manufacturing of quality steel. During several periods over the last 400 years, Sweden has been a major exporter of both ore- and steel products. During the period around 1650-1750, Sweden supplied 50% of the "western" world's iron. However, it is important to understand that the total world production was then about 100.000 metric tons yearly. A stunning thought as this quantity would take the current mine at Kirunavaara just two days to produce. Not to mention how few people are needed to do the same job today...

Although Sweden is very rich in minerals and several of these have been mined over the years, the by far most abundant resource is iron. Sweden's vast forest allowed for a steady supply charcoal to the blast furnaces, which enabled small foundries to produce top class sulfur-free steel in small batches. The purity of charcoal and ores with exceptionally low contents of impurities were both central competitive advantages over the continental iron works until new steel foundry processes were introduced in the end of the 1900 century.

The golden days of iron ore did not as some think occurred during WWII, but from the late 1940s to the early 1960s where Sweden dominated the world's iron ore exports. A time when enormous prosperity was formed and massive investments were made, which some twenty years later ended up in a deep recession.

New methods of processing iron, the massive increase in size of ships together with tougher world-market competition on iron-ore and steel products started to become alarmingly evident from around 1960, which forced smaller and medium-sized mines and steelworks in central Sweden to close from around 1965 and onwards. The recession in the 70s triggered a wave of closures, and the last mid-Swedish mine was closed in 1992.

Except for a handful sulfide ore mines (where Aitik [Cu mainly], Garpenberg [Zn, Pb, Ag and others] and Zinkgruvan [Zn mainly] are large, even by international standards), today only two iron ore mines are left - Kirunavaara and Vitåfors at Kiruna and Gällivare respectively (up in the very north of Sweden), with Kirunavaara being the largest underground mine in the world. Although hundreds of mines have been closed the last centuries, and today's annual output is less than the 40MT peak in 1975, the overall "health" of the industry is now on top.

Most of the environment and buildings around these abandoned mines are still intact, yet in a very late stage of deterioration by snow, frost, wind and rain. When walking around the usually dead silent surroundings, there is a feeling that the last person who left simply turned of the lamp and locked up. It is just a matter of years to come before these unique landmarks of modern industrial history are gone forever...
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