Gummans ‘intaga’ – a story of creation

Once upon a time, a poor, lonely woman lived here in a small cottage on land she had settled without any formal right – referred to by contemporary sources as an intaga.

In her younger years, she planted three oak trees on the site – a seemingly modest undertaking that would later prove to be of great significance.

In 1828, the Hovjägmästare (Royal Master of the Hunt), Israel Adolf Ström, paid a visit. He met the woman who had come to be known as ‘the old lady’. She told him that the oaks were now around 40 years old. According to the surveyor Jonas Allvin, two of them were said to be ‘quite beautiful’. The third had been damaged by vandalism and was described as being ‘crippled’.

Ström was deeply impressed by the oaks. Trees on the mainland took roughly 80 years to reach the same size. The damaged tree was felled and the wood sent to the capital for analysis. The examination confirmed the excellence of the timber, and the Visingsö oak was declared by shipbuilders and carpenters to be the strongest and finest in the entire kingdom.

When Ström became head of the newly formed Explantation Board in 1831, he proposed Visingsö as a suitable site for a major afforestation project. One woman’s initiative and hard work thus became the inspiration for the oak forest that we can still enjoy today.

The old lady was allowed to stay in the cottage, where she lived out the rest of her life. However, the three original ‘creation trees’ no longer exist. They were felled in 1900, as they were thought to have hindered the growth of the nearby coniferous forest.

Administrator: National Property Board of Sweden