Production of charcoal has a long tradition here in Sweden and with a large base of blast furnaces charged with iron ore, the steel industry's hunger for coal caused massive deforestation mainly in the 1800- and 1900th century. Since then, the forests have recovered well.

Charcoal was traditionally made by large piles of hardwood that was slowly burned with a minimum admittance of air, creating wooden tar and turpentine as a by-products. As the steel industry gradually abandoned charcoal for cost reasons in favor of mined coal, the production fell drastically after WWII.

Premium wooden tar is made from pinewood and it has excellent wood preservative properties. When this particular plant went into operation in 1941, it can be assumed that it solely used pine as in this case the tar and turpentine were main products and charcoal the by-product. It was apparently a venture that could only sustain wartime shortage conditions and the plant finally closed in 1961.

Today, the building is in a late stage of decay and the forest is steadily regaining lost land. Although one could believe that products derived directly out of something as natural as pine should not create too much of environmental problems, the ground around the plant is soaked with spills.

The dense surrounding forest together with a massive rainfall made this visit something special, although some blue sky would have been nice...
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