Swedish groundbreaking Kirna Church begins its two-day journey to a new home, saving wooden walls from subsidence down the Arctic roads and expanding the world’s largest metropolitan ore mine.
The workers jacked a 600 tonne 113-year-old church from the foundation and directed it to a specially built trailer. This is part of a 30-year project relocating thousands of people and buildings from the city of Kiruna in the Lapland region.
Mining operator LKAB has broadened his journey for the past year. It voted for one of Sweden’s largest wooden structures, a red painted church, often for its most beautiful 5km (3 miles).
The journey begins on Tuesday saves the church, but removes it from where it has stood for over a century.
“The church is in some way the soul of Kiruna and in some way a safe place,” said Lena Tyanberg, Kiruna’s pastor. “For me, it’s like a day of joy, but I think people are feeling sad because we have to leave this place.”
For many of the indigenous Sami communities in the area that have flocked with reindeer there for thousands of years, emotions are less mixed together. This move is a reminder of the much wider changes brought about by the expansion of mining.
“The area is a traditional Sami land,” said Rath Markas Kumnen, chairman of the local Gabna Sami community. “The area was a grazing land and the land where the reindeer calves were born.”
If plans for another nearby mine move forward after the move, it paves the way out of summer and winter meadows for the reindeer, making it “impossible” in the future, he said.
“Fifty years ago, my great grandfather said the mines would eat our way of life, a herd of reindeer, and he was right,” he added.
The church is just a part of the relocation project.
What’s next?
Lkab says it will need to move around about 3,000 homes and around 6,000 people. Many public and commercial buildings have been demolished, but like churches, some people are driven by one piece.
Other buildings have been demolished and rebuilt around the new city centre. Hundreds of new homes, shops and new city halls are also being built.
This shift will allow LKAB, which produces 80% of the iron ore mined in Europe, to continue to extend Kiruna operations for decades to come.
State-owned enterprises have grown approximately 2 billion tons of minerals, mainly from the Kiruna mines, since the 1890s. The mineral resources are estimated to be an additional 6 billion tonnes of Kirna and nearby Svappavara and Malmbert.
Lkab is currently planning a new mine next to the existing Kiruna site.
Rare earth elements
Like iron ore, the proposed Geijer mine includes a group of 17 metals important for products ranging from lasers to iPhones, as well as key sediments of rare earth elements, key sediments of green technology to achieve European climate targets.
Europe, and much of the world, now relies almost entirely on China for the supply and processing of rare earths.
In March this year, the European Union designated Geijer as a strategic project. This will help speed up the process of producing new mines.
Approximately 5 km (3 miles) along the road, Kiruna’s new city centre also takes shape.
“The church is… a statement or symbol of change in this city,” Mayor Matt said. “We’re on the way now. We have 10 years left to move through the rest of the cities.”
