Help a local association in the peaceful village of Murjek, Lapland

Sweden

Favourited 239 times

Host rating
Feedback
8
Last activity
10/08/2020
Reply rate
87.5 %
Average reply time:
within 3 days
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2020

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What's this?

Details

Description
Murjek is a little village close to the Arctic Circle, conveniently situated on the main railway line between Stockholm and Narvik. From here you can take a bus (45 minutes) to Jokkmokk, the gateway to the mountains, or travel by bus or train (90 minutes) to Luleå on the coast. About 60 people live here now. It's a quiet and peaceful place in the middle of Lapland. People live close to nature here: you can go fishing, hiking or cycling in the summer time, in the autumn you can pick berries and mushrooms, while in the winter you can go skiing or do ice fishing.
We have a local village association which runs a lunch restaurant and a bed and breakfast hostel in a beautiful old building in the centre of the village.
Type of help
Gardening
Building
Help in the house
Helping with Tourists
Help
We need help with cleaning, gardening and some renovation. If you are practical and have some working-experience, you are welcome.
Languages spoken
German: Fluent
English: Fluent
Sami: Fluent
Swedish: Fluent
Accommodation
Own room in the hostel and lunch together with the lunch guests. Dinner and breakfast must be prepared by yourself, but the local association buys all the food.
What else ...
Important: we prefer to have a couple or two friends, because in the evenings and mostly after work there will be nobody around the house. The second thing is: one of you should speak basic Swedish, because those people who can speak english or german are not always around.
You can reach Murjek by train, directly from Stockholm.
A little more information
- Internet access
- Limited internet access
- We have pets
- We are smokers
- Can host families
How many Workawayers can stay?
More than two
Hours expected
5 hours

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Hembygdsgården

Feedback left by and about host (8)

18/05/2019

Left by host for Workawayer (Karen & Helmut)

With volunteers like Karen and Helmut it feels as if time goes too quickly: they were with us for three months and we would have liked them to stay longer.
They are fantastic people with many excellent qualities: they are committed, sharp, willing to cooperate, sociable and self-motivated.
They have great skills and are very accomplished at… read more

(Excellent )

28/04/2019

Left by Workawayer (Karen & Helmut) for host

We stayed three month from Christmas 2018 till end of march 2019 in Murjeks Hembygdsgard. It was a great and quiet time out here in the north. Because there are mostly no guests around here in winter it is the best time for renovating. That's what we did the whole time (and knew that, because we had very good communication during the time before):… read more Painting some guest-rooms and corridors, wallpaper-work, laying new floor (Laminate) and building simple furnitures. We were very free to choose the time, when we worked (often double-shifts, when the weather was bad and then some days off, when the sun was shining). In summer, when guests are sleeping here, there might be more service-work (cleaning, housekeeping etc.) and not so "open" working-times.

Birigt (the "leader"), Maria (the cook) and all the others are very open-minded, respectful and kind! It's a good feeling to know, that we all (locals and workawayer) are volunteers here (except the cook). It will be not bad to speak some words swedish to be able to communicate with some people, who don't speak english. But it was absolutely no problem, that we did'nt speak swedish.
During the week this association has a small restaurant running from 11-13:30, where local (elder) people and worker come for a (simple, meat- and energyloaded) meal. There you can meet really authentic charakters of the rural north and friendly, warmful old people of the village. This place is the social-meeting-place here, because (except the kiosk at the small station) there are no facilities (shop, pub ect.) in Murjek anymore. Don't miss the public Sauna nearby every friday evening! That's THE event of the week and is called here the "naked-bar" - a place to talk, change informations, sweat and have a beer together. Highly recommended!
Specially in winter you are mostly alone in this beautiful and huge more than 100 years old house between 15:00 and 07:30 during the week and completly on Saturday and Sunday. Some times (even during the winter), there are workers on shift over night here.

Apart from this, it's a special atmosphere (what we loved) to feel the old stories of this former school for teachers!
The accommodation is good, there is always more than enough food and it's quite warm and cosy (below minus 30 degrees it can be some cooler inside, but there are additional heater). WiFi is perfect and (if you need) a huge TV.
The surrounding is pure nature with endless forests, swamp, lakes and a hilly landscape. If you want you can do cross-country-skiing in winter - there is a track for this. But there are a lot of forests - roads and snow-mobile-tracks, where you can walk for hours even in winter.

If you are interested to join the quiet live here in the north, to meet local people and want to explore the rough outside, you will find a real gold-nugget in Murjek.
For us it was a perfect and important time, to come down and learn a lot of people and country. We leave Murjek in love and with new friends!

(Excellent )

13/04/2019

Left by host for Workawayer (Anne & Thorkel )

Anne and Thorkel stayed with us in Murjek for 6 weeks, which was far too short as we would have loved to have had them for longer! Both Anne and Thorkel were independent and self-motivated and got on with their tasks in a friendly manner without any fuss. They also took the initiative and suggested useful things to do, which was very helpful.
Anne… read more

(Excellent )

24/03/2019

Left by Workawayer (Anne & Thorkel ) for host

03/08/2018

We have stayed 6 weeks in Murjek and we have come home with beautiful experiences in Lapland and we have made friends with so great people in Murjek. We will not repeat all the good things written by the former workawayers, they describe it so well. We are Danish, so it was comparatively easy for us to try to speak Swedish and make… read more

(Excellent )

28/05/2018

Left by Workawayer (Daniel) for host

I stayed here in march for about 3 weeks. Birgit, who runs the hostel is really kind, understanding and helpful. The usual arrangement was to work from 9 till 3 with an hours lunch, Monday to Friday. Maria the chef who is also easy to get on with and makes great traditional Swedish dishes is there from 7:30 to 3pm. There are two more ladies who… read more

(Excellent )

18/04/2016

Left by Workawayer (Jessica & Rory) for host

So we have just finished 6 months of volunteering in Murjek and let me tell you, if you wish to see out an Arctic winter in a warm house in Lapland then this is a great place in which to do it. A small town, nice and friendly people, a relaxed pace in the work, a great work schedule and the vast and deadly silent nature of Northern Sweden right… read more on the door step. What more could you want?

It is situated in a very quiet village with no “amusements” of any kind so come prepared (books, laptop etc.). The house is often empty of guests so if you don't like the sound of quietness, then don't come here. There is a great internet connection, a nice room for the volunteers and a fully stocked guest kitchen in addition to the café kitchen. You will never go hungry in Murjek (that's just impossible), the food is traditional Swedish style cooking, it's high calorie stuff (good in the cold weather), full of meat and it's plentiful, they are also happy to buy food for you to supplement what they serve in the café. The place is run by a committee of towns people (all lovely folks) that both run the place and are the café's regular customers, so you'll be seeing them most days. At about 3pm they all go home and the whole place becomes yours (and the occasional guests). It's a huge place by the way, it's only got the 6 guest rooms (sleeps about 16 at a push), a café, a library (with an excellent selection of Swedish books), a tv room, a workshop and a museum about the former school.

The work is at a very relaxed pace, there is always cleaning tasks (vacuum cleaning, mopping, dusting, dishes etc.), along with food preparation, serving, maybe fixing stuff, lifting stuff or painting stuff. The sort of jobs you might expect in a hotel or café really. The ladies here allowed us some flexibility with our schedule so we could ski every day through the winter on our lunch break which really made the long darkness very easy to handle.
The one difficulty sometimes with volunteering here was the (lack of) communication. My guess is that it will be as strange to you as it was for us (possibly it is just a Swedish thing as no one seems at all bothered by it). Sometimes it left us wondering what to do, when to do it, or if we did it right. But after a while we got used to it and found a way to deal with this.

We couldn't think of a better place to spend a winter really, the work is steady and calm, the people are friendly and very respectful of your free time and personal space. The village is quiet, there is a public sauna, you work weekends only on special occasion (like the Jokkmokk year market) so you have lots of free time to get out to walk or ski (there are a heap of snow scooter trails you can follow) and see the beautiful surrounding Nature.

If you looking for Nature (with capital N) and you like a quite lifestyle, there is no better place!

(Excellent )

29/03/2016

Left by host for Workawayer (Jessica & Rory)

Rory and Jessica stayed with us over the whole winter (Oct to April 2015-16) and now that they are leaving we are really sorry to see them go. They are both lovely people, great to work with and really easy going. They had very varied jobs here but regardless of what needed doing they seldom needed asking as they were always on the lookout for… read more

(Excellent )

30/06/2014

Left by Workawayer (Takako) for host

Thank you for the nice stay and great new experience there. I really enjoyed the relaxing and peaceful life in the big house, having lots of delicious Swedish dishes and, exploring nature and the historical place.
It was amazing that there is no sundown in summer.
Great to have an opportunity to explore other towns, too.

(Very good )

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Host ref number: 663995557544

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