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Women Rule Macho Town

Britta Flinkfeldt Jansson, political head and mayor of Arjeplog.

Arjeplog is consid-ered by many to be a real macho place, but the fact is that women rule!
Nearly all the top positions in Arjeplog are held by women.
Britta Flinkfeldt Jansson is the political head and the mayor of the kommun.
Claudia Zamorano has been appointed as head of the kommun administration after Bo Wallin who is retiring soon.
Annika Sandberg is head of the accounts department of the kommun and Ingela Bergman runs the Silver Museum.
Ulrica Fredriksson is the administrative head of the department of education, recreation and culture.
Carola Wiklund is the head of the Motor Vehicle Registration Office and Gun-Inger Wallström is in charge of Destination Arctic Circle.
The list of women in top positions can be made very long, most of the shops and hotels are owned or run by women.
There are fewer women than men in Arjeplog but they still have most of the power. This is an unusual state of aff-airs in Arjeplog and in fact anywhere in Sweden, but ten years ago the situation was almost the same and we wrote about ”The Power Women” here.
Today there is a majority of women in top positions in a kommun that is also the world’s largest winter test centre for the motor industry, which is predominently male.

Annika Sandberg, head of the accounts department of the kommun.

Claudia Zamorano will soon take over as head of the kommun administration.

Ingela Bergman is in charge of the Silver Museum.

Friday March 12, 2010. Sunrise: 6.20 Sunset: 17.37
Length of day: 11 hours, 17 minutes. Length of visible light: 12 hrs 59 min.

This & That

• The rear vision of a new vehicle with sporty fastback styling must be severely resticted after it reversed into a medium-sized SUV at the OKQ8 petrol station in Arjeplog in broad daylight on Sunday.

• Next season Nokian Tyres will again be holding events so everyone who is interested can see and feel tyres that are made for nordic conditions.

• There will be no lunches or dinners served at Hornavan Hotell from March 15-19 as the hotel has been hired by a large group.
• The ventilation is now working properly at Frasses and they are open as usual.
• You can see mingel pictures from Harrys from Saturday March 6 at http://gallery.me.com/jofoto#100065
• We would like to thank the various restaurants for donating vouchers for free dinners for every local and car tester that we interviewed throughout the season.
• Last year locals won nearly three million SEK gambling at Kalle’s Kiosk in Arjeplog. “It was a very lucky year for the gamblers, says Andreas Karlberg owner of the shop. 1,2 million was won gambling on horses and the rest of the money came from Lotto and other forms of gambling. Keno, which is similar to Lotto, gave five winnings over 50,000 SEK and the biggest single win last year was 220,000 SEK.

Afrodite, a Popular Restaurant in Arvidsjaur

During the season we have written a lot about all the restaurants in Arjeplog and now we would like to present Afrodite, one of the best restaurants in Arvidsjaur, according to Peter Manner, boss of the tourist information centre in Arvidsjaur.
Peter told us that Afrodite is popular among locals and guests often like to eat where the locals eat.
Afrodite is situated on the main street in Arvidsjaur and is open every day. They offer a mixed menu with food from Sweden, Greece, Italy and the Orient. They also make pizza wth reindeer meat. Their motto is ‘when taste is important’.
Mahmoud Ismail aka Mario, who owns and runs Afrodite came to Arvidsjaur from Lebanon over 18 years ago. He has run restaurants in other parts of Sweden and has owned the popular Afrodite in Arvidsjaur for quite a few years.

Mario and Salim Naguel at Afrodite restaurant

Follow-up on Safety Systems and Young Drivers

A letter from John Batchelor.
Being a recent convert to The Arje-plog Times, I read with interest the Mayor’s comments in last week’s issue regarding safety systems and their potential effects on young driver’s perception of safety whilst driving.
This topic has been of interest to me for several years as I am involved with both driving safety, through my ‘day job’, and young drivers through a website I run in the UK, in my spare time.
Driving safety has been increased significantly in recent years through the intelligence and hard work of many of your readers but it is still down to the ‘end user’ to drive appropriately for the conditions. We all know, usually through personal experience, that “Newton always wins” or to quote Scotty, the Engineer from the Star Trek ship Enterprise, “You cannot change the laws of physics, Captain”.
I have tried to help young drivers in the UK understand this inescapable fact and the technology that can help them at http://www.ur1stcar.co.uk/ur1stcar/dynamics.asp
The more knowledge, training and experience a young driver has, the better their chances of becoming a safer, older driver.
If there is interest in offering this kind of information and advice to young drivers in Sweden, or other countries, I would be very interested to discuss possibilities. Please contact me via my website.

Name: John Batchelor:
Occupation:
I work for Jaguar Land Rover as Group Leader - SCS Applications. And webmaster for ur1stcar (“your first car” in text-speak) in my spare time.
Most fun in a car?
Driving a rear wheel drive R33 Nissan Skyline GTR around a handling circuit in Japan. Now that’s what I call oversteer!
Your first car?
Triumph Dolomite 1500HL in ‘Honeysuckle’ beige.
Current car?
A new Ford Fiesta 1.25 5 door
Dream cars?
Ferrari 288GTO or Lancia Stratos - in red, of course. In the real world, a
Mark 1 MX-5 1.8 or a Ford Puma 1.7.

Re-birth of Boxing in Arjeplog

Boxing used to be a big sport in Arjeplog. Some people who are interested in boxing found out that a full size international boxing ring had been put in storage many years ago.
They started a martial arts club and have now put up the ring in an old school. They are enthusiastic and say they are going to arrange proper boxing matches.
The ring was used in the 50’s when heavy weight world champions Floyd Patersson and Ingemar Johansson boxed here.
A handful of locals have reached some degree of fame for their skills.
The last time this ring was used was 23 years ago at the winter market when a boxing match was held at the sports hall. 750 people saw the boxing that day, which shows the extent of interest in the sport. Now there are forces working towards a new era for boxing in Arjeplog.

Former boxing champion Niklas Öhlund trains Ulf Andersson in the old ring and behind is André Fredriksson and Ted Tolestam.

A personal message for Andreas at Knorr Bremse.

Mein lieber „hardworking“ Schatz,
Ich sende dir von Herzen die allerherzlichsten Glückwünsche aus dem
fernen Deutschland ins schöne Arjeplog!
Heute sind wir auf den Tag genau 47 Monate zusammen!
Ich bin so unendlich glücklich, dass es dich gibt- und zwar ganz genau
so wie du bist!
Ich liebe dich über alles und freue mich schon so sehr auf dich!
Dicken Kuss,
Dein kleiner Panda Jeannine.

Returning Birds, a Sure Sign of Sprin

The two male Goosander (storskrake in Swedish) seen in Arjeplog last weekend is the first sign of the arrival spring after a long and cold winter.

When the birds start to come back, springtime is on its way. For many locals the arrival of the birds are a significant sign that winter is on its final leg. The newspapers are filled with pictures and stories of arriving birds.
Most birds move south in autumn, some to the south of Sweden and other to Africa.
Often the first birds to return after the winter are the swans but now in the streams of Arjeplog we have seen two beautiful Goosander or in German, Gänsesäger (Mergus merganser) as well as 3 mallards and 3 red-breasted goosanders.

The Traditional Winter Market

The traditional winter market, dates back to 1640 or perhaps even earlier. The market has changed in many ways but many things are still the same.
In the olden days, people traded what they had hunted and fished during the winter months for necessities such as salt, sugar, flour and later even coffee.
Nowadays, it is an open-air market where you can get local food-stuffs, handicraft and fishing equipment as well as jewellery, clothes and knick-knacks from all over the world.
The market was a meeting place for people who came to town from the surrounding villages. It fulfilled a social need - family and friends spent the weekend together talking, eating, drinking, doing business and having fun - after being isolated during the long winter months.
Today, it also fulfills a social need and there are many visitors from far and near.

Nowadays, you can still see people selling furs and meat and fish like in the olden days.
But today there are many other products for sale, as well.

Try different foods
There are many different foods to try and buy at the market, such as souvas (smoked reindeer meat), salted herr-ing, sausages, hamburgers, hot chips, sandwiches, bread, honey, cakes, sweets and lots more.

What to do
The Silver Museum is open all weekend (Sat 10-16, Sun 10-14) where you can see permanent exhibitions and buy from the shop. During the weekend there will be a handicraft exhibition from a few places in the north of Sweden.
Many of the shops are open on Saturday and Sunday and many have special offers.
There is a free music concert at the church on Saturday at 15.00
At Hornavan Hotell in Skepps-viken, many local handicraft artists will be selling their wares at the “Hantverkargränd” on Friday and Saturday. There will also be a tattoo artist where you can drop in and have a tatoo.
Most of the restaurants are offering special market menus on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There are pub and troubadour evenings as well as discos and dances. For all the details see What’s on?
Enjoy the market weekend!

During the market weekend, the streets in the centre of town will be closed to traffic from Thursday afternoon until Sunday at 20.00.
Drott-ning-gatan will turn into a two-way street and should only be used by people who live there and by Konsum customers.
Most of Storgatan and the streets by the market square will be closed to traffic.