It’s a bright, blustery spring day; a cornflower sky blazes above me as I turn another tendril of emerald sugar kelp over in my hand, a warm wash of Baltic Sea lapping at the craggy Swedish shoreline below.
The air is laced with a pungent perfume of sea salt, my hands now cold from the wet and slime. It all feels quite meditative, spiritual, even, I realise, as I run my fingers between two moss-sheathed rocks and listen intently to Karolina Martinson—Gothenburg’s ‘queen of kelp’—enthuse about the health properties of algae.
Stylishly clad in fisherman knits and a utilitarian apron, Vrångö island’s expert forager has become something of a suitably-weathered poster woman for kelp-harvesting in Sweden. Poised, knowledgeable and bursting with passion for “wild, edible treasures”, it’s easy to see how a “girl who just loved being out in nature, whether it was picking for mushrooms or swimming in the sea” is quietly spearheading a campaign to farm seaweed at (a sustainable) scale.
It all, she insists, starts with education though—which translates to teaching locals, students at Gothenburg University, and tourists like me to value, harvest, cook and consume the bounty of kelp that thrives in our oceans.
Sweden queen of kelp, Karolina Martinson
(Image credit: Damien Raggatt for Intrepid Travel)
“I moved to Styrsö [a neighbouring] isle about 25 years ago,” Martinson tells me while gently fanning out thick, silky strands of purple dulse. “Back then seaweed was not very valued. People thought it was disgusting; it was considered a problem for the boats. But I have always been interested in different things—I have been an artist and I have studied the environment and sustainability and health, even alternative energy, in many different ways.
“I’ve worked with social enterprises to help women in jail and people with mental illnesses. So, the connecting thread of my life has been looking at what gets thrown away: it can be food, it can be things, sadly, it can be people. And I want to lift them up; avenge them,” she smiles, a wind-whipped strip of hair serving to punctuate her point.
Seaweed safari
“I spent my childhood out in nature. The sea’s pantry is always open to me.”
Now, Martinson is inviting more into her coastal kitchen, neatly packaging up her enthusiasm and expertise into bite-sized ‘seaweed safaris’ that champion kelp foraging and immersive cooking, before culminating in a beautiful beachside feast.
It’s adventurous and soul-lifting, and I feel a rush of contentment wash over me as I help to toast freshly-made flat breads over an open fire.
“It’s like meditation for me too; like I have a connection to nature and a relation to its food,” Martinson says, noting my deep exhales and dropped shoulders. “That’s what made me look at seaweed when I came to Styrsö. At that time, Sweden had no living food culture about seaweed, but I thought of it as a new kind of vegetable: what could I make if I boiled it? Fried it? Made it into different salts?”
Crispy strings of bladderwrack and shredded sugar kelp
(Image credit: Damien Raggatt for Intrepid Travel)
Staring at our trestle table, now draped in golden-hour light and groaning under the weight of hand-foraged food, it turns out the answer is rather a lot.
Candied strips of glass-like sea lettuce are paired with creamy dulce de leche and sea campion; crispy strings of bladderwrack and shredded sugar kelp fuse with vegetable noodles and coriander; still-hot-from-the-fire hunks of salty flatbread are dipped in zesty tzatziki and washed down with glasses of crisp, seaweed-infused wine.
It’s a very chic, Scandi-appropriate introduction to the Southern Gothenburg Archipelago—a collection of 800 isles that sit around 45 minutes from Sweden’s second largest city. I’m here for a two-night stay at the harbourside Kajkanten Vrångo—a charming, family-run hotel headed up by the characterful Håkan Karlsten, who is also the brainchild behind the hotel’s partnership with Martinson—and a fun host if you fancy a spin round the bay in one of Kajkanten’s signature kayaks.
Kayaking in Vrångo Island bay
(Image credit: Damien Raggatt for Intrepid Travel)
With around 400 inhabitants, Vrångo is small (and car-less). There’s an honesty box at the only supermarket; supplies are delivered once a week by boat from the city; people either get about by fishing vessel or bicycle. Honest food, soulful hikes and peaceful paddles out into the sapphire bay reign here, and when you’re not foraging and feasting with Martinson you can delight in classic Swedish seafare at Hamnkrogen Lotsen—a stylish waterside restaurant that serves up crayfish, mussels, smoked shrimp and luxuriously zingy dips with freshly baked sourdough.
Owners Andreas and Jennie Wijk form a formidable team, with Andreas (a former fisherman) leading on the gastronomy and Jennie styling the venue in acres of white linen, eclectic vintage accessories and small stem vases filled with fresh blooms.
Classic Swedish seafare at Hamnkrogen Lotsen
(Image credit: Damien Raggatt for Intrepid Travel)
Learning the Old Ways
Keen to see more of the wild archipelago through the eyes of a local, I hop aboard Karlsten’s small motor boat the next day to explore the abandoned lighthouse and flower-strewn meadows of Valö—an uninhabited speck of an isle 20 minutes away. It has been passed down to Vrångo residents through the generations, and now serves as a protected nature reserve that’s open to guests at the hotel.
The Nordic winds howl here. Karlsten joyfully regales me with ancient tales of harbour pilots who once protected these waters from pirates. We walk through dense, unspoilt woodlands, listening to the late-spring chorus of oystercatchers before circling back to the boat. It’s heavenly.
“The old ways are still alive here,” Karlsten says proudly, nodding to the glittering waves out at sea. “I feel lucky to call this home; to have the joys of being in a close-knit community; to wake up to this view and be able to walk among the birds and the flowers. This is what people need more of: to reconnect with nature; to feel part of it again.”
The lighthouse and flower-strewn meadows of Valö
(Image credit: Damien Raggatt for Intrepid Travel)
I think back to this conversation later that evening while taking a deliciously steamy dip in the hotel’s sea-facing Jacuzzi. The sun is setting, the sky shot with ribbons of cobalt and amber. I put my flute of champagne down, pad out to the diving platform and plunge straight into the glass-like water.
Sweden’s Vrångo Island may be a world away from the slick restaurants of Gothenburg and swanky boutiques of Stockholm, but it’s the epicentre of Sweden’s lagom spirit. Here, you’re encouraged to slow down, reconnect with the wilderness and feel truly ‘part of’ something meaningful again.
Nicola Moyne travelled to Vrångo with Intrepid, as part of a wider tour. You can visit Sweden on Intrepid Travel’s Taste of Scandinavia (from £1,850pp) or Scandinavia Explorer (from £3,651pp), which includes accommodation, some meals and activities, services of a local guide and ground transport while on the tour. International flights are extra. Book at intrepidtravel.com or call 0808 274 5111.