Visual Bornholm
Published by Visual Media ApS
Designed by Miru Studio
TEXT: MADS WESTERMANN PHOTO: ANDERS BEIER
In Almindingen, Store Rævegænge lies like a narrow and almost unknown rift valley. A forgotten world, a small piece of Bornholm’s primeval forest that has remained largely untouched by man since the ice age 15,000 years ago.
It is a journey into a microcosm of carnivorous plants, treacherous hanging bags, lingonberries, blueberries, mushrooms and soft velvety moss. An oasis where the silence is only broken by the rustle of the wind in the trees, the trickle of water, the hoarse cries of ravens and the sound of one’s own footsteps in the damp moss. A piece of nature that is more reminiscent of Mattisskoven than of Almindingen.
There are no signs or arrows pointing into the well-hidden valley, and you have to look closely to spot the entrance.
It begins at the small forest lake Kohullet, which most of all resembles a black, inky mirror. It is one of Bornholm’s highest wetlands, filled with the cleanest, softest rainwater. The lake is located in a depression in the granite terrain, and because it is fed exclusively by rainfall, the water is low in calcium and nutrients. This makes room for plants that have specialized in managing without the nutrients that most other species depend on.
A narrow path winds along the eastern and northern shores of Kohullet.
Hidden between the floating water cones at the water’s edge is Kohullet’s biggest attraction, the floating cone. It is a rare plant with thread-shaped leaves and small white flower buds that float freely in the water. It is found almost nowhere else on Bornholm. Along the shore also grows the bush Thirst, which with its characteristic red bark and black berries lights up against the dark water. And in the damp hanging sack of peat moss, which you shouldn’t step on, the carnivorous plant, round-leaved sundew, towers over the ground, catching insects with its sticky red tentacles, which it slowly digests to compensate for the nutrient-poor soil.
The path follows the bank until it makes a sharp bend to the right. Here it leaves Kohullet, and then something happens to the atmosphere. The sounds of civilization, the cars down the road through Almindingen and the distant voices, die out. The path leads into a rift valley, a cathedral of fir trees and granite.
Bornholm has more than 200 small and large rift valleys, formed by faults in the bedrock and shaped by the glaciers of the ice ages. Store Rævegænge is something in itself.
Where the vertical rock walls of Ekkodalen hit a flat meadow floor, Store Rævegænge is a geological chaos. Huge granite blocks lie bumpy on the valley floor, as if they were thrown by giants and are now sleeping.
The terrain is hilly with the characteristic haddocks, round rock peaks that give the landscape around the valley a wavy profile. In summer, the treetops close like a dense, green roof, filtering the daylight into the dim summer darkness. Sunlight only gets through as dancing streaks that hit the green ferns. It is a humid jungle, where the ice scrubbed the bedrock clean, leaving behind steep cliffs and fallen stones, and which the flora is now slowly reclaiming.
Anyone who zooms in fully will discover that the valley is cushioned. It is not ordinary ground that you walk on. It is a thick, living carpet. The hard, rough granite is wrapped in deep cushions of moss, which you sink into. Sometimes silently, other times with an audible swish, because the moss holds water and is soaking wet. Even in the middle of summer, parts of the valley are wet enough to fill a shoe.
Store Rævegånge is a paradise for moss nerds. Maidenhair forms dense tufts, and in summer long spore bodies shoot up, resembling small, golden wigs. Star moss resembles a carpet of small, green Christmas stars down on the forest floor, and
the silver-green cushion moss, which you pay fortunes for at the florist at Christmas time, grows wild everywhere.
Nature here is beautiful, but it is also insidious. Under the idyllic surface, danger lurks in the form of a hanging bag. It is swaying sphagnum moss that grows over the swampy water holes. The moss looks solid, but it does not bear. If you step on it, you can sink deep into the bottomless bog bed. Narrow walkways made of wood and chips are laid out over the wettest areas, and it is wise to stick to them.
In the heat of summer, a heavy smell of earth and decay hangs over the lowest areas, while acidic swamp gases bubble up from the mire. It is here, in the dark, inky pools, that death lurks in miniature. The carnivorous plant bladderwort floats around rootless. Although it blooms with innocent yellow flowers above the surface, its underwater leaves are studded with small capture bladders that act as effective traps. With a lightning-fast negative pressure, it sucks in water fleas and insects until they slowly dissolve, allowing it to obtain nourishment from the otherwise nutrient-poor water.
The walk through Store Rævegånge is only about 500 meters long, but it requires balance on the slippery walkways, which are often covered in wet leaves or algae. The reward is a completely unique nature experience, and depending on the season, you can take dinner or dessert home.
The forest’s pantry is well-stocked, especially in autumn. Under the birch trees, large colonies of birch reed caps, a sought-after edible mushroom, appear. It is very similar to its close and well-known relative, the edible lingonberry, or barberry. With a little luck, you can also find it hidden in the moss.
In midsummer, berries light up the thicket along the path. Both sweet blueberries and tart, red lingonberries grow here. The lingonberries hide a little story about failed nature management.
In 1926, 3,000 lingonberry plants were imported from the forests around Silkeborg and planted in Almindingen. The purpose was to create a food source for the large gallinaceous bird, the bullfinch, which they tried to reintroduce to Bornholm. The project failed. The bullfinch never really thrived on the island and disappeared again after a few decades. But the descendants of the Central Jutland lingonberry plants still thrive and bear fruit every late summer.
Just as suddenly as it all began, the rift valley ends. The rocks step aside, the treetops open, and daylight pours in. In front lies the forest lake Puggakullekær, shiny and quiet, surrounded by birch and reeds.
Like Kohullet, it is filled with rainwater that runs off from the surrounding landscape. And because Puggakullekær is lower, it functions as Kohullet’s overflow. It is the water that seeps from one lake to the other that nourishes the unique plant life in the valley. When Puggakullekær is filled, the water flows southeast, through the Bat Valley to Åremyr, then along small streams to Læså, which flows into the Baltic Sea at Boderne on the southwest coast. All the water that has just passed carnivorous plants and bottomless moss ends up quietly in the sea.
The origin of the peculiar name Puggakullekær has been forgotten, but the word regularly comes up when Bornholm language enthusiasts gather. If you look at the Bornholm dictionary, the most likely suggestion is a contraction of “pugga”, the Bornholm word for frog, “kujlla”, a small round hill, and “kær”, a bog hole or a swampy scrub forest. Puggakullekær is therefore the lake by the frog hill. And on quiet evenings you can hear that the frogs are still there.
The gravel road towards Rokkestenen is only a few steps away. Behind it lies an untouched world of moss and rocks, where humans are only guests. The smell of moss and the feeling of velvet moss follow you for a while. Five hundred meters of fissure valley, and yet a completely different world.
