Multiplying the unique

In the mid-1990s twelve forest huts, modeled after charcoal workers’ lodges, were constructed by the lake of Skärsjön in rural Sweden, with the support of the local municipality and the National Labour Market Board. Ten years later an entrepreneur started a hostel with an eco-friendly profile at the premises, in cooperation with The Swedish Tourist Association. Guests stay over in the forest huts, fetch drinking water in a fresh forest well, cook food on an open fire and wash the dishes under a small waterfall in a nearby creek. Wildlife adventures such as moose safaris or wolf howling tours are offered to the visitors upon request. The operation has won several prestigious national and international awards and is furthermore featured in international tourism guides and the coffee table book genre illustrating “unusual hotels”. This landscape contains more than the local ‘natural’ assets and cultural heritage. It also borrows ingredients (such as mythic tales and special rituals) from other stagings of unique places, which introduces a paradox. Elements from other unique places are included, so this could be recognized, sanctioned and used as precisely a unique place. By invoking singularity, the place simultaneously multiplies as it becomes identifiable as one among many unique hotels. The tourist’s unique outdoor experience furthermore produces a busy city man on a merely brief visit to the countryside. Upon the overnight guests’ arrival, each visitor is encouraged to share a story about why they are there. When handed a moose horn at the welcoming ceremony around a lit camp fire, their strikingly similar narrations have a confessional character and are variations on the theme: one loves the nature, one used to spend time in the woods during childhood, but now lives a hectic city life and wishes one had more time to spend in the nature.