Advertisement

elk

Slow TV project follows Sweden's elk for 450 hours

The Local Sweden
The Local Sweden - [email protected]
Slow TV project follows Sweden's elk for 450 hours
The elk have followed the same route for thousands of years. File photo: Heiko Junge / NTB scanpix / TT

Every spring for around 9,000 years, hundreds of elk have crossed the same river to migrate to summer pastures. This year it's possible to watch their journey from start to finish, thanks to a major 'slow TV' project by Sweden's national broadcaster.

Advertisement

The animals travel from the coast where they spend the winter to their summer grazing spot near the foot of the mountains, by swimming across the Ångermanälven in Jämtland once the ice has melted.

Trapping pits in the area show that people have watched the animals make this journey for centuries, and this year the journey will be recorded by 22 unmanned cameras linked up to a nearby control room.

READ ALSO:

The programme, titled Den stora älgvandringen (The Great Elk Trek), had its premiere on Monday and the elks' journey will be broadcast live 24/7 until May 2nd, making it the first independent slow TV project by Swedish broadcaster SVT. Planning took an entire year.

Highlights from the footage, plus commentary, will also be shown in three one-hour segments on nature programme Mitt i Naturen (In the midst of nature), with the first episode broadcast on Thursday.

You can watch the programme here

Vocabulary

elk (some would say moose, but here's why we say elk) – älg

summer pasture  – sommarbete

to melt – smälta

slow – långsam

unmanned – obemannad

We're aiming to help our readers improve their Swedish by translating vocabulary from some of our news stories. Did you find this article useful? Do you have any suggestions? Let us know.

 

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also