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Döda Fallet, Ragunda, Sweden in 1966

Döda Fallet (The Dead Waterfall) is a former waterfall, in a now dried up riverbed in the former route of the river Indalsälven about 10 km southeast of Hammarstrand, along Highway 87, between Hammarstrand and Bispgården.

 

Here was Gedungsen , also called the Grand Rapids , which was an approximately 35-meter waterfall in Indalsälven and represented the exit of the lake Ragundasjön. For the emerging forest industry , which wanted to float timber on Indalsälven, it was a problem that most of the timber was smashed in the high, steep and rocky waterfall.

 

In the spring of 1796 Magnus Huss dug a timber chute past the rapids. However, this came to be catastrophic, the chute was dug through a gravel ridge, and when the spring floods came, the water flow increased so much that the entire ridge was eroded away. in four hours during the night between 6 and 7 June 1796 the lake was emptied almost completely. A new waterfall - Hammarforsen - arose and the now much smaller lake remains upstream of the new waterfall. Indalsälven took a new route and Gedungsen fell silent. Thus, had the Dead Falls occurred.

 

For his part in this, Magnus Huss is now referred to as Vild-Hussen (Wild Huss).

 

Döda Fallet became a nature reserve in 1964 and is considered one of Ragunda Municipality's major tourist attractions. A theatre with revolving seating has also been built nearby. On this revolving seating popular plays are set up in the summer.

 

This picture shows a giant cauldron (jättegryta), where a block of rock has been revolving in millennia in the melting water from the gigantiic ice sheet over Scandinavia.

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Uploaded on April 18, 2014
Taken on August 1, 1966