About the project

To my english speaking lake friends

This site is dedicated to the lakes in my county and is a very personal site. Deeply rooted in old dreams and longings to roam free in the nature, to explore, and by making it public finding other soul mates who visits nature for the same reasons. It is also sadly a very swedish site. It never occured to me that anyone else would visit it. But after checking my web stats you seem to come here from all over the globe.

The core of this site are the 2089 lake pages hosted. All the bigger lakes in my county. As the system is maintained it is a massive undertaking to translate them all. I am trully sorry for that. I can't teach you swedish in a wink so what I can offer for now is a translation of this about page and the lake search page. For now.

The lake pages are not translated to any other language but you can use Google Chromes translate function by right clicking on a particular page and translate it. A popup at the top of the page makes it possible to change the language to translate to.

The following text is a translation of the swedish About page.

A monumental hobby project

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The project Sjödetektiven is not a collaborative project with the municipalities of Östergötland or the County Administrative Board in Östergötland. The information you find at Sjödetektiven is information that I have compiled.

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I, who call me, Sjödetektiven did not really know much about lakes, except the usual, they are wet and fishes lives in them.

Most of us who grew up in the lake rich country Sweden (or any lake rich country for that matter) have our own personal, and often fond, memories of them. From our parents carefully dipping us in them, to all the games, excursions, swimming and fishing trips. My own earliest memories of lakes were when I was a summer child in Småland during nine wonderful summers on a farm in Högaskog north of Aneby in Småland. Every night when there were weather for it (or not) all the children were put in the car and we went to a dam west of Vrangsjön or to the Vrangsjön itself. Not always the most comfortable trip. I was often standing freezing and shaking at the shore, with my arms tightly squeezed around my chest. But once I decided to jump in I soon forgot any inconveniences.

Since then there have been many lake visits. Especially in Ångermanland, in Stockholm and in the last ten years in Östergötland.

Visiting all the lakes in Östergötland would take several generations, causing long-term sickness and early retirement. But I hope the project can lead to an increase in interest in primarily Östergötland's lakes, but perhaps also Sweden in general. Both my own and others. Personally, I do not have to climb any Eiffel Tower, photograph pyramids or see Mona Lisa 'in real' to find sights. The more I find out about the lakes around the corner, the more convinced I have become that they are at least as big sights. It is only a matter of unlocking their hidden secrets.

How did I become a lake detective?

But what did actually happen to me when I went from a regular Swedish lake tourist to a lake detective? Constantly looking for clues about the lakes, its nature, geology, history, sagas and stories, photographing, walking around them and GPS collecting.

It is probably a combination of the memories from the childhood lake visits to almost 40 years as a resident of Stockholm, where a visit to a lake becomes a weekend project or a trully stressful story at some small lake in the vicinity. When I moved to Norrköping in 2005 there were suddenly 2089 lakes in a reasonable distance in the county. And many of them in the legend rich Kolmården. I felt at last I was close to the big adventure, the secretive and enticing Kolmården. An old dream has also been to not have to worry about getting lost in the woods. I therefore bought a handheld GPS device that makes it impossible to get lost. Best buy I've done in a long time.

During July 2014, it was closer to 30 degrees Celcius for three weeks and it was unbearable to be in town. Almost every day I therefore made a visit to a lake with camera, gps and coffee. More than one person, thought I was crazy walking around lakes in almost 30 degrees of heat. And it should be acknowledged that I have never sweated so much earlier. But the drive to discover more and more and more just grew all the time. After all, it was lakes, and a quick dive solved it and then I could move on.

Each new lake became like a new friend, but a very secretive friend. An ancient and silent acquaintance who just lay there, resting with the sky in its water mirror and framed by forests, marshes, aquatic plants, small villages and farms. But a friend who doubtlessly always had the door open when you come to visit. I wanted to get to know the lakes more and more, but it seemed as if no one really had told the history of the lakes from a completely unconditional perspective. Just as you get to know a new acquaintance, when you want to know as much as possible. And then no detail is uninteresting. It was therefore just to put on the rucksack, a pair of good shoes and go out on lake stake outs.

Not to mention the names of the lakes. Who does not want to become more familiar with someone named, for example:

• Appan (not sure what this means)
• Degstensgölen (Dough Stone Pond)
• Djuparöven (The Deep Ass ... not kidding)
• Domedagsgölen (The Dooms Day Pond)
• Envisegölen (The Stubborn Pond)
• Fläten (not sure what this means)
• Getryggen (The Goat's Back)
• Kattfällsgölen (The Cat Pelt Pond)
• Krutstampagölen (The Gun Powder Stomping Pond)
• Spökgölen (The Ghost Pond)

Clearly acquaintances with colorful characters and personalities.

A kind of book with no last page

I thought a lot about how I wanted to organize the site and collect and publish information about lakes I visit or read about. A blog would not work, it's only chronological, just like Facebook. At the same time, I wanted to tell my own story from my perspective where I mix the facts with blog-like posts. The site should also be easily updated with new discoveries about different lakes. At regular intervals, I will update the site with recent findings about the lake information I have collected. It may be physical visits with photos, videos, kml files or any book I read where I downloaded information.

Recent lake stake outs will be posted on the website, followed by a list of those lakes with recently updated information. Each lake has its own page where the following information can be found:

• Lake id
• Gps coordinate
• Municiplaity
• Surface area (km^2)
• Shore line (km)
• Height over the sea (m)
• Max depth (m)
• Volume (m^3)
• Google Earth files with place info and eventually gps waypoints
• General info
• Lake flora
• Lake fauna
• Land flora
• Land fauna
• Fishing info
• Lake stake outs done by Sjödetektiven
• Sources
• Photos
• Videos

You as a reader are welcome to contribute with your own knowledge or experiences of the lakes. In the introductory phase, I will not add any guestbook or forum. Possibly a Facebook group. But then the project will turn into a community project, and it takes a lot of time to be managed in a good way. If you want to contribute something, there is an email button at the bottom of each lake page. If so, I'll add your information and enter you as a source (or as anonymous if you'd prefer that).

A friendly warning to you who wants to do some lake stake outs

To the extent possible, I have followed the shores of the lakes. Sometimes they are available but often very, very difficult to get around. I do not provide any terrain info, so you go out there on your own risk. Risk of misjudging the time it takes to walk around, risk of getting shovel shavings, hurting a foot, getting out of fresh water, getting ticks. Or maybe encounter an angry wild boar (though the risk is quite small).

PS! From my own experience, I usually double the shoreline distance in the lake's basic info. If it says the lake has 5 kilometers of shoreline, I estimate it to a 10 kilometer walk. Because of all the zig-zagging in the natural terrain.

A FRIENDLY ADVICE! Walking in a natural terrain without looking where you put your feets can have its risks. It is easy to sprain a foot. But how fun is it to walk in the woods and fields and just look at your feet? I've started to apply something myself, the 10-step method. Start by quickly looking at the nearest terrain. Look down on your feet and take 10 steps in the direction you just chose. Lift your eyes quickly and check out the nearest terrain and direction. Look at your feet and take 10 more steps. Every 30-40 steps you can stop and look a little further in the surroundings. In this way you can keep a fairly high pace without risking taking a wrong step.

Google Earth Files

The idea of the kml files is that you can easily see where a lake is located, either from home on the computer or via your cell phone. On the spot at the lake you can quickly see where there are good swimming or fishing spots, special sights, ancient remains and more.

Each lake page can have two cathegories of Google Earth files:

• basic info: Shows the lake's position and basic info
• waypoints: Shows gps coordinates of interesting spots I have collected during my walks around the lakes.

kml files for Google Earth

The KML files are optimized for use in Google Earth. On your computer at home, you need to install Google Earth. You will find the program here. For android and iOS there are apps here.

When you click on Plats i Google Earth the lake will be zoomed in. For example:

Click on the icon to see the lakes basic info:

If you want to know more about the lake then click on the text icon to retreive the lake's webpage:

Press "Back to Google Earth" to switch back to Google Earth view.

When you click on Waypoints in Google Earth for a lake, it shows points of interest collected by Sjödetektiven. Example:

Icons in Sjödetektiven's waypoint files

The points of interest and its icons are shown below. They may change over time.

Cathegory	Icon
Bathing spot
Jetty
Boat spot
Boat rental
Brook or ditch
Berry spot
Dam
Fire place
Fishing spot
Ancient remains
Croft or house
Map
Mystical place
Nature attractions
Parking spot
Rest area
Toilets
Panoramic view
Café or restaurant
Suitable tenting spot
Wind shelter
Mushroom spot
Other