At Arkivcentrum you will find unique archive material from all over Norrbotten. The oldest document is from the 1500th century, but most are from the mid-1800th century onwards. The documents tell about the activities of several generations in various fields.
If you are interested in the county and want to delve deeper into archives and literature, you can contact us. If you are looking for a particular document, we can produce it for you, so that you can sit in the research hall and study it. In addition to reading archive documents, you can browse through newspaper clippings, take part in themed exhibitions, listen to folk music and interviews from Norrbotten, botanize in the library or read books and magazines.
Arkivcentrum Norrbotten is a collaboration between Norrbotten Museum's archive and library and Norrbotten's Association Archive.
In Norrbotten Museum's library you will find books, writings and magazines on archaeology, buildings and building maintenance, ethnology, art, local history and other things that concern Norrbotten County and Norrbotten Museum's operations.
The library is part of the Norrbotten Archive Center. You are welcome to sit in the library or research hall to study in books or materials that we bring out for you. Currently, it is not possible to borrow literature, but if you want to copy something, it is fine.
Search and see what books we have
Please contact us a few days in advance if you want to order something from the library. Then you will also find out if the material is available before you get here.
In Norrbotten's museum's archives, the county's cultural history is in focus. The archive contains documents from our various areas of activity such as documentation of buildings, archaeological investigations, exhibitions and much more.
Here you will also find documents from Norrbotten companies, farms and private individuals, as well as transcripts and copies from other archive institutions and relating to Norrbotten.
The service archive contains documents from when the collection of museum objects started in 1878, and up to today. The archive reflects the county's long cultural history and contains, among other things, documents about art, buildings, cultural environment care, history, working life and industries, communications and the Sami.
The topographical series in the service archive are of particular interest to rural researchers. The documents relate to specific places, villages or cities where the museum has been involved in some way.
A large part of the service archive contains diary entries. Contact the archive if you want to take part in the museum's diary and official archives.
In the individual archives you will find documents outside the public sphere, such as associations, companies, farms or private individuals. In Norrbotten's museum's archives, there is a large and diverse collection of individual archives, from single letters to large company archives.
Crown hunter in Arvidsjaur and Älvsbyn with a great interest in forest history. In his private archive there is much to retrieve for those interested in forestry, rafting, tar burning, hunting and more. Adolf Öhman (b. 1913) was, after his retirement from the Domain Agency in 1973, for many years a valued guide in the Storforsen Forestry Museum.
Albert Nordberg (1871-1954) was born in Sundsvall but became provost in Nederluleå 1901-1947. Here he became firmly rooted, not least because his interest was captured by the history of the Luleå region. The work "An old Norrbottensbygd: notes on the history of Luleå parish" was the result of many years of tireless research. The documents Nordberg left behind consist of genealogy research, correspondence and manuscripts as well as a number of transcripts and notes from, among other things, the church archives.
Anders Granberg (b. 1919) was a policeman in Nederluleå 1943-1967. In his private archive, for example, you can study documents relating to the conversion to right-hand traffic in 1967. Granberg was a county representative for the State's right-hand traffic commission and then worked at the Swedish Traffic Safety Administration. Alongside his work, he was very active in the sports movement, which is also reflected in the archive.
Miner in Luleå 1859-1896. The archive contains, among other things, travel stories and notebooks.
Botvid Nilsson (b. 1896) was a corporal, quartermaster in Luleå/Nederluleå and active in associations in, among other things, the Society for Homeland Security. The documents in Nilsson's private archive have a lot to do with police work and span from the end of the 1800th century to the middle of the 1900th century.
Kamrer and industrious home region researcher from Månsbyn, Nederkalix parish, born 1931. Lövkvist's private archive consists of his own research into the history of his home region, but also Norrbotten. The document collection "That's how it used to be" contains a large amount of information collected from several different archival institutions and people with local historical knowledge.
Mayor of Luleå city 1831-1865. The documents left behind span from 1807 to the early 1870s, with a focus on the time as mayor.
Erik Olof Nordlinder (1827-1911) was born and raised in Hälsingland but spent most of his life in Norrbotten, living in Luleå. He was active as a county surveyor 1859-1885. After retirement, he was a very active describer of his region. Nordlinder was a cartographer and drawing teacher with a lively interest in culture and language as well as nature and meteorological conditions. Weather, wind, the state of the ice in the archipelago, the opening of shipping and the water level have been carefully noted in Nordlinder's notebooks, which are kept in the Norrbotten museum's archives.
Vifast Björklund (1928-1988) was a craftsman, musician and collector for, among others, Norrbotten's museum. The archive contains a lot of information about dress, craftsmanship, music, language and dialect as well as folk tradition, especially for Överkalix.
The main part of the archive comes from the documents left by the author and museum curator David Törnqvist (1866-1928), including letters, manuscripts and lecture scripts.
Johan Emanuel Östling (b 1863), married to Sofia (b Sundström), together had the children Magnhild, Valborg and Per. In addition to the family business Östling's leather and shoe store, JE Östling made a name for itself in municipal life. He was chairman of the municipal board, the poor welfare board, the emergency aid committee as well as church steward and vice chairman of the church council, school board and the child care board. He was also a county councilman with several assignments, including a member of the boards of directors for the hospital in Luleå and Sandträsk sanatorium. JE Östling was awarded the Vasa Order in 1921 and died four years later.
Like his father, Per Östling (b. 1903) was right-wing and interested in municipal life, where he worked as an accountant. In addition to the shoe business, he had a small farm and was a partner in Hertsö salmon fishing. Hunting was a great interest and Per belonged to the management of Gammelstad's hunting club. During the Second World War, he got involved with the Finnish refugee families who came to Sweden. Per was also a firefighter in the fire department that during the war would assist Gammelstad's fire department.
Magnhild Östling (b. 1900) helped her brother Per with the business but also worked at the Food Board. She was strongly religious and a diligent donor to various aid organizations. Valborg Östling (b. 1902) also worked in the store and continued to run it together with her sister after Per's death in 1961, until the 1990s.
Östling's family archive contains over 100 volumes of documents from the lives of the family members, everything from the completely personal to things related to association activities, education and professional life. See also Östling's leather and shoe store archive.
Knut Lundmark (1889-1958), professor of astronomy, was like his wife Birgitta (née Carlsson 1886) born and raised in Älvsbyn. Knut Lundmark did pioneering work on the nature and distance of galaxies. He was a leading proponent of the new physical worldview that took shape in the 1920s, when our Milky Way star system emerged as one galaxy among countless others. Until now, the uncertainty of the great cosmic distances had prevented a decision on the question of whether there was a single star system or many separate ones. As early as 1919, Knut Lundmark determined the distance of the Andromeda Galaxy to be 650 light years, which is roughly a quarter of the modern value; he measured the luminosities of the novae that flared up in the Andromeda Galaxy and compared them with the luminosities of nearby novae. The method was basically the same as Edwin Hubble later (000) applied to Cepheids – another class of variable stars – and gave a comparable result.
Knut Lundmark's archive was donated to the museum by the Knut Lundmark Society in Älvsbyn. The archive, which includes almost 30 shelf meters of documents, consists of Professor Lundmark's own works and collected writings mainly in astronomy. Here are also parts of Knut and his wife Birgitta's correspondence, photographs, books with newspaper clippings and much other exciting material. The manuscript department at Lund University Library has an extensive collection from Lundmark, who was a professor at the university from 1929-55.
Traveling circus and amusement park that, among other things, toured Tornedalen and along the Norrbotten coast. The archive contains documents both from the business and the Altenburg family, who have been involved with the circus for several generations.
Engaged in trade during the 1800th century. The farm was built in 1826 and the main building still stands today at Rådstugatan 7 in Luleå. In addition to trading with Lapland, among other things, they had a shipping company and finally a hat and cloth shop. The last operation ceased in 1933.
Account books circa 1760-1860, trade with, among other things, Stockholm and the Lapland lands.
Luleå Bryggeri AB was founded in 1908 by Gustaf Burström and later became Nyckel-Bryggerier - a family business until 1979 that was revived in the early 2000s by Burström's relatives. The archive consists of a small remnant of the early business, two account books from 1911 and 1913. A larger and more well-preserved archive from the same industry is Liver steam brewery, also in Norrbotten's museum's custody.
There had previously been another brewery in Luleå, Norrbottens Bryggeri, which was located after Norra Strandgatan. The new brewery was located by the water, which was important when cutting ice for cooling. The brewery quickly became a success and produced soft drinks, beer and soft drinks. At the end of the 1970s, times became more difficult, even though the bestseller Key Beer for a period accounted for 75 percent of strong beer sales in Norrbotten. Nyckel-Bryggerier waged an uneven battle against the then state-owned giant Pripps, which dumped the prices of its range in Norrbotten to attract customers. "I drink Stockholmsöl" became a famous slogan. It was an intense and bitter struggle that was also noticed in the media. In 1979 the family business was sold to the Till group and ten years later all production ceased in the brewery in Luleå. (Source: NSD)
Norrland's oldest family-owned architectural office, starting in 1928. The company has operated in Norrbotten for almost 80 years with projects in all the county's municipalities, ranging from large hospitals, churches, crematoria, courthouses, schools, commercial and residential buildings, to summer cottages and urinals. The Catholic church in Luleå became the architect office's last major commission and in 2004 the archive was handed over to the Norrbotten museum. In the 50 square meter archive there is a large amount of drawings and construction technical descriptions, but also correspondence, photographs, building permit documents and procurement and construction contracts.
Brickworks in Sunderbyn 1899-1967, ownership linked to Luleå Kol- och Materialaffär/Beijers. The archive consists of 51 volumes with mostly accounts, but also minutes, correspondence, contracts, drawings and more. Marieberg's brick was considered one of the best in Norrbotten and received an honorary diploma in 1921 for beautiful brick. Norrbotten's museum's main building, inaugurated in 1936, is built with bricks from the mill.
In 1899, the construction of a large brickworks began according to drawings and cost proposals by Svedala Gjuteri & Mekaniska verkstad. The company's name was Mariebergs Tegelbruks AB. In the fall of 1901, it went bankrupt, but after a change of ownership was reorganized into Luleå Tegelbruks AB in the spring of 1902. The first years were difficult, but then profitability recovered, especially during wartime when the prices of bricks rose.
Brick manufacturing at Marieberg ceased in the fall of 1967 and a few years later the factory was demolished. Today, only the manager's villa reminds of the place's heyday. A scene in Jan Troell's film: "Här har du ditt liv" is recorded in the brick factory's drying oven. The film, shot in the mid-1960s, is based on Boden-born Nobel laureate Eyvind Johnson's work "The Novel of Olof".
After the start in 1911, Norrbottens Läns Mejeriidkare- och Producentförening was officially formed in 1913, reformed into Norrbottens läns producertförening (NLP) in 1937. The association ceased when it merged into Norrmejerier in 1992. The large archive includes not only NLP but also documents from some smaller cooperative dairies which was part of the association.
The association was formed in 1936 and had its first year of operation in 1937. In 1943, Norrbotten's first modern slaughterhouse was inaugurated in Bergviken in Luleå, after fierce discussion within the association regarding the location in the county. Thirty years later, the slaughterhouse in Bergviken was replaced by a new facility at Storheden. In 1989, the Slaughterhouse Association merged with the Norrbotten County Producers' Association.
Family-owned business in Gammelstad, Luleå. JE Östling trained as a tanner with stays in Germany and southern Sweden, before returning home to start a tannery business in Gammelstad. This was later combined with trade in footwear, galoshes and more. The company JE Östling's leather and shoe business was registered in 1888 and was taken over by the children Magnhild, Valborg and Per, who continued to run the business right into the 1990s. The archive includes 65 volumes, mostly accounts but also assortment catalogs and advertising prints and signs. See also Östling's family archive.
Documents from the lighthouse operation on the island of Rödkallen in the Luleå archipelago, circa 1880-1967. Rödkallen is a small island in the outermost strip of sea in the Bothnian archipelago, historically known as a pilotage and lighthouse site and a base for fishing and seal hunting. A chapel was built on the island in 1800 by Swedish and Finnish fishermen, with an adjacent belfry in 1801. The chapel was also used as storage for fishing equipment in winter and as a sea mark. The pilot's lookout of that time was on the roof of the chapel.
The Rödkallen lighthouse, designed by Gustav von Heidenstam, was built in 1872 to be mobile and easy to assemble up and down as needed. It was built with a modern steel structure, 21,4 meters high and has 112 steps to the top. Rödkallen lighthouse was in use for almost 100 years. It was decommissioned in 1971 and is now classified as a cultural-historical memorial.
Ship's diary 1865-1867.
The boat was purchased in 1898 from a steamboat company in the Kalixtrakten by captain Axel Pettersson. The route ran between Luleå and Törefors, but was changed to Luleå-Piteå after a few years. The trip took four hours and during the summer was the fastest way to travel between the two cities. The route was closed in 1928. The archive mainly consists of shipping books.
Accounts, including freight and passenger charges 1865-1911.
Carl was a schooner barque but was also referred to as ship, schooner ship and bark ship. Built in 1870 at Prince Oskar's shipyard, Hortlax-Sandholmen, by builder EA Brändlöf Luleå. The ship was built for merchant CA Hedqvist, skipper FA Hallengren, mill owner JO Degerman, sawmill inspector Carl A. Markström, merchant JG Jonsson, Anders Lundberg and AR Clausén as well as forester CE .Degerman.
The ship Carl sailed to ports in the Baltic Sea, Western Europe and the Mediterranean. The ship made several trips to North and South America as well as the West Indies and visited the home port of Piteå several times. Carl was sold in 1898 to Roslagen and was scuttled in Norrtälje around 1911. The archive mainly contains accounts, but also documents relating to the ship's construction, insurance documents and extracts from the ship's journal, circa 1869-1887.
The Dufvan was launched during the summer of 1854, a large and magnificent ship built on Långön by Jonas Bodell's shipyard. Rigging and equipment took place at Oscarsvarv and the then 36-year-old NP Sundström was the captain. He had sailed with several Luleå ships and was well acquainted with the waters between the Gulf of Bothnia and the Mediterranean Sea, where the voyage was steered this time as well with Dufvan's first, and last, voyage. The beautifully bound ship's journal 1854-1855 tells of the voyage ending between Corsica and Elba at midnight on April 22, 1855. The Dufvan hit a coral reef "so hard she headed 3 feet". The crew was rescued, but the weather increased rapidly and the ship could not be saved. Naval declaration was held in nearby Livorno and on April 25, 1855, Dufvan's short history was officially over.
The vessel was built in Sunderland, England in 1866 and measured over 500 tons. Its first name was Cleta and it was intended to transport tea from the colonies. From the mid-1870s, however, it mostly sailed on Australia. In 1887 the ship was bought to Malmö and named Nelly & Mathilda. She was later also at home in Björknäs (1916-1924) and in Ramsjöstrand (1924-1926) before she was sold to Finland and was named Frideborg. In the last years she sailed on the wooden line to Denmark and England.
In September 1937, Frideborg ran aground outside Kalix and was taken to port to be condemned there, even though the damage was not that serious. The cabin was towed ashore and serves today as a summer cottage, while part of the interior was donated to Norrbotten's museum. The archive contains a bound ship's diary, left by Helsingborg's Sjömanshus Direktion, captain Carl Johan Persson 3.5.1923.
Recorded interviews with Kiruna residents during the period 1940-47.
Village documents and maps, 1600th-1800th centuries.
Handwritten and illustrated essays from primary schools in Norrbotten during the years 1951-53, on the theme of home.
Scattered collection of older documents donated to the museum. Among other things, estate records, tenancy contracts, court records and more, 1600th-1800th century.
Large number of interviews and music recordings from the Luleå and Boden area, 1960s.
Norrbotten Museum's archive is a knowledge bank that has largely been built up through gifts from individuals.
We currently have no active fundraising activities, but are grateful for all the offers we receive.
If you have archive documents about an individual, farm or business connected to Norrbotten, it may be of interest. Letters and diaries, account books and notebooks are examples of important sources for historical research outside the public domain.
We do not accept everything, but are happy to discuss and guide you if you are wondering what to do with your old documents. Unique archival material related to the county is always of interest, while printed matter is assessed on a case-by-case basis. Do not hesitate to contact us.
At Arkivcentrum Norrbotten, the archives of Norrbottens-Kuriren and Norrländska Socialdemokratens are stored together with many other newspaper materials.
The newspapers' archive includes pictures and newspaper clippings sorted by subject and person. The newspapers are bound quarterly or monthly. In the archive there is also an almost complete set of the newspaper Norrskensflamman and loose issues of other Norrbothnian daily newspapers.
Norrbotten's museum has its own rock collection that stretches from the 1920s until the end of the 1980s. The clip collection is arranged both topographically and subject-wise.
With the collapse of the Social Democratic Party in 1917, the established party newspaper Norrskensflamman was lost to the communists. A new mouthpiece had to emerge quickly and despite the tough economic times, the Norrländska Socialdemocraten (NSD) was born with the motto "Justice - Freedom - Bread". The premiere issue had a typeface drawn by Albert Engström himself. The first year, 1918, the newspaper was printed in Stockholm. The real start is usually counted from 1919, when both the editorial office and the printing house were located in Boden.
After about ten weak years, NSD began to grow in earnest during the 1930s, and in 1944 passed the nearest competitor, Norrbottens-Kuriren. Many subscribers were taken over from Norrskensflamman when social democracy in the county advanced at the expense of the communists. In Luleå, however, Norrbottens-Kuriren had been the biggest newspaper for a long time. In 1976, NSD moved its main editorial office to the city, attracted among other things by the major investment Stålverk 80. Despite the crashed steel mill plans, things went well for NSD in Luleå. Since 2008, the former competitors have been housed together in Mediahuset in Luleå.
Norrbottens-Kuriren is Luleå's largest and Norrbotten's oldest still active daily newspaper, founded in 1861 in Luleå. The newspaper was originally published four times a week, and from 1905 six times. Over the years, NK's political orientation has been described as liberal, liberal, national liberal, moderate and bourgeois.
On December 7, 1861, the print shop owner LU Berglund announced in the newspaper Norden that a newspaper called Norrbottens-Kuriren would be published at his publisher, instead of the newspaper Norden. On December 14, 1861, the first issue of Norrbottens-Kuriren was published, printed in a small baker's cottage on the Bodell estate Skatan in Luleå.
In 1864 the Scanian Nils Petter Isakson came to Norrbottens-Kuriren as financial manager and technical leader. He was a strong driving force and NK came to be a company owned by the Isakson family right up until 1966. NP Isakson worked energetically for the newspaper's technical development, an investment that continued over the years. The printing house was equipped with a fine press in 1892 and with a setting machine in 1899 – the first outside of Stockholm and Gothenburg. Rotary press was installed in 1936. Transition to phototype setting and offset printing took place in 1970 and in 1981, renewal of typesetting technology and installation of a larger and more flexible offset press followed.
In 1966, the newly formed foundation Norrbottenspress took over ownership, but the newspaper's management included Nils Isakson as CEO until 1980. Since 2002, Kuriren has been owned by the NTM group. In 2007, Piteå-Tidningen and Valrossen came in as minority owners. In addition to Norrbottens-Kuriren, the NTM group also includes Norrköpings-Tidningar, Östgöta Correspondenten, Upsala Nya Tidning, Folkbladet, Västerviks-Tidningen, Norrländska Socialdemokraten, Gotland Allehanda and Gotlands Tidningar as well as a number of other companies in the media industry. Since 2008, NK has been located together with NSD in Mediahuset in Luleå.
The newspapers below have been published specifically for Norrbotten. The newspapers are arranged chronologically by the start of publication, and the place of publication is in parentheses.
Source: Pressen i norr 150 år, TU-kretsen 50 år (1991) and supplementary information (KB)
In the research hall, there are 3 songs and chants to listen to. You are welcome to search among the archives' music history material and the music literature in the reference library.
Music sung and played in Norrbotten is often called folk music, but it can also be religious texts, military music or classical music in local variations. Most of the recordings contain instrumental songs and songs in Meänkieli and Swedish. A small part of the county's song tax is presented on the internet, but most of it you can listen to and watch with us.
The list below is not complete, but gives an image of how Norrbotten's folk music has been documented so far.
In the Archives Center's research hall, you can listen to more melodies - there are a few thousand to choose from.
Sven Henriksson, Strandforssel, Råneå. Copy from Swedish art archive from Lars-Gunnar Boman's collection, Norrbotten museum archive.
A private recording with, among others, the brothers Halvard and Helge Blomqvist. The recording was made in the mid-1980s at the Herbert Bergström family in Hälleström, Piteå. It is probably Halvard who plays one of the violins, Helge who is heard on the zither and Herbert who plays the accordion.
A private recording by and with farmer Herbert Bergström, Hälleström, Piteå. One line major. The song title refers to the breed of Svensk Rödbrokig Boskap (SRB) which was well represented in the farm's livestock.
Here you will get some tips on sheet music and books with music or music history from Norrbotten and Sweden. You can study them on site at the Archives Center, but not borrow them home. If they are not in the nearest municipal library, it is often good to borrow from another library at a lower cost.
To get an overview of the entire county's folk music, we recommend that you contact the sound archive at Ájtte, Swedish Mountain and Sami Museum in Jokkmokk. Ájtte has digitized several thousand joiks from all over Nordkalotten, and thus from large parts of Norrbotten county.
Below is a list of abbreviations that may be useful to know when searching in music archives.
Norrbotten's Association Archive is, together with Norrbotten's museum, part of the Norrbotten Archive Center. The association archive preserves, documents and makes available the history of Norrbotten's association life.
Föreningsarkivet is a non-profit association with member associations all over Norrbotten. These represent a wide spectrum of associational life, from trade unions, temperance and free church associations to boat clubs and the home village guild.