Bråruds­mossen

Brårudsmossen is close to the centre of Sunne and is a short ride trail on level ground and is therefore quite easy to walk. It offers a rich flora and fauna. At the start of the trail there is a bench and another one is positioned at the far end of the path, where you have a view of the Backatjärn. From there, you have the opportunity to see and hear whooper swans and cranes. At night in the early summer, you may be lucky enough to hear water rails and spotted crakes. Woodcocks regularly fly over the moss.

Good to know:

  • Trail length: 2 kilometres
  • Difficulty level: Very easy
  • Distance to Sunne: 1 kilometer
  • Starting point: Sunne dog club >

A varied walk near the centre of Sunne

Brårudsmossen offers a relatively varied and beautiful walk. You walk through old, coarse, mixed forest and both growing and fallen birth forests, as well as sparse pine forests of varying ages. When it opens up so that the sun reaches the ground, the ground vegetation is also different from the rest. There is both spruce forest and young deciduous forest. Large carpets of club-moss are rewarding photographic subjects, as they look like a miniature tight coniferous forest.

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Nature comes close

You follow a 2-3 meter-wide canal for some way, before you are given the opportunity to enjoy nature from a bench. The scents and the bird song are very soothing. It’s a pleasant hike because the surface is so soft and springy. As we are walking on a carpet of moss, there are both wet and marshy areas. Planks are put down here, but after a lot of rain, new damp areas may occasionally arise. You can usually get around in trainers or hiking boots. In heavy rain, the water won’t drain away, but it won’t stand for a while, but you’ll notice it at the information board. It is rare that the rain causes major problems, but you may need to walk around wet areas. The process of putting down planks occurs continuously when the need arises.

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Exciting encounters with wild animals 

Brårudmossen is a popular place for deer and elk, among other animals. There is a badger’s den in the area and foxes and hares also live here. From the north-west corner of the moss you can see a beaver hide, further away in the overgrown Backatjärn.

Birds

The bird life is abundant, as the birds thrive in the damp bushes of Backatjärn and along the canal that separates the pond from Brårudsmossen. The sun-lit field edge around the moss attracts many songbirds to make their voices heard. There is plenty of dead wood and the birch forest that blew down during the storm in autumn 2014 has been left in place to enrich biodiversity. It is an excellent environment for the woodpecker to seek food and for wrens to build their nests. It is the mosaic of different biotopes bordering on the moss that makes it particularly beneficial for wildlife. In the spring you can hear a wide range of singers: willow warblers, chiffchaffs and wood warblers, as well as marsh warblers and nightingales. Some years even small pied flycatchers have been heard here. Larger and smaller woodpeckers are stationary. If you are lucky, you can also see flocks of long-tailed tits looking for food in the trees.

Clubmoss and other interesting plants

On the open grounds in the middle of the moss you will find cranberries, and different types of cottongrass on the white moss. Gnarled, ancient pine trees stand at the edges and further away are real forests of pine,spruce and birch or mixed forest. Under the trees, bog whortleberries, crowberries and labrador tea grow. The soil is low in nutrients, which benefits the heather, among other things.

There is also an abundance of clubmoss. In the past, clubmoss was used to braid carpets or to decorate them. Since it grows slowly, it should now be left in the forest. From clubmoss, you also get lycopodium powder. This was harvested from the immature seeds, which were collected and dried. The powder was also known as  ‘old lady’s gunpowder’ as it is highly flammable. It was also used in the past as a releasing agent for tablets. The club moss differs from other foliage species in that it is taller and that the spores sit one by one directly on the stalk-like strobilus. On some birch stems you can see black, knotty plants; it is the chaga mushroom that attacks deciduous trees and is a sign that the tree is dying.

Peat moss from days gone by

Brårudsmossen in a peat moss with a surface of around 40 hectares. The moss is a metre or so thick. Peat consists of parts of plants which, due to lack of oxygen, have only partially decomposed. The moss consists of open marshes with damp areas in the middle, while the outer edges are drier and grown with pine, spruce and birch forest. In some places it may be wet, but there are wooden planks to make your hiking easier. The moss has been used in the past for peat extraction, and there are still traces of this.

Harvesting peat, heavy work

During your hike, you can see excavated “tombs” and ditches in the peat ground, as well as remains from old peat sheds. The traces of peat extraction indicate a small-scale peat mining. The farms all around had their share in the moss and broke peat there for household needs. It was autumn that was the harvest time for peat in Sweden during the first half of the 1900s. With a sharp spade, you cut out blocks of 20x30x10 cm. This was done down to 40 cm below the level at which the peat began to be saturated with water. By cutting below the water level, you automatically got a ditch to divert water and dried the ditch edge for next year’s peat harvest. The cut blocks were then left to dry over the winter. In the early summer they were stood on edge to dry better, so they could be brought back to the barns on the moss or home to the farms.

Uses of peat

The peat was ground into peat litter and then used to suck up urine and manure in the barn. In late winter, the brown manure was used as fertiliser in the fields. The peat blocks could also be used to make fires with. On the moss north of Brårudsmossen, you can still see the remains of a peat plant, where the peat was transported by rail.