Working at Wolfmarsh in the northern wilderness of Sweden

In September 2007 it was time for a new trip, and this time the destination was Wolfmarsh - a serene place by a lake in the woods northwest of Skelleftea, completely void of modern commodities such as running water and electricity.

However, whatever Wolfmarsh lacks in kitchen appliances, surround system and bathroom facilities it makes up in unspoiled nature, tranquility and beautiful simplicity. This little wooden cottage from early 19th century has been a holiday getaway for Magnus and relatives for a long time, and we thought it would be good to get away from civilization for a couple of weeks and find a more harmonic and inspiring pace of life. Being the ones we are and working like we do we only needed to get on-line every once in a while, and we looked forward to explore the possibilities for that in the northern wilderness of Sweden.

There was also some classic hard work to be done at Wolfmarsh, particularly to the boathouse which was looking a bit sad...

Work for clients

Before Telia-SIM we had to drive in search for cellular coverage

Even if we were quite isolated out there it didn't mean that we couldn't do our work. One problem was that we didn't have good cellular coverage at the cottage with Telenor as our operator so we had to drive 30 miles towards Skelleftea until we were allowed to do anything except emergency-calls. There, parked at a reststop along the road at 10 pm with complete darkness around us and not a living soul around us except the regular inhabitants of the forest, we started updating our customer's websites with laptops on-line via cell phones and GPRS. However, that's not the type of mobility we were looking for...

So, the next day we drove to a gas station where we figured we could score a Telia SIM-card, and the clerk immediately confirmed that nothing was better than Telia when it came to coverage in the area, and lo and behold - with the new SIM installed and configured for GPRS it was fast, simple and easy to get on-line at the Wolfmarsh cottage.

There were not really any limitations to the work we could do, except the lack of electricity. The inverter we brought and connected to the cigarette lighter socket in the car could not muster enough juice to charge neither of our laptops, so the gas station became the go-to-place for charging.

Reflections from the trip

Amazing colours at the lake

We know that our approach to work is a bit unorthodox but doing things like this brings so much more joy into it and life in general and we are thoroughly convinced that it improves the result of our work, something that our customers certainly appreciate. This freedom spurs creativity and it is a source for inspiration and motivation.