Canoe trip in the Swedish wilderness — wild camping on islets

In the lake country of western Sweden — Dalsland and Värmland, where forest and water interleave for as far as the map runs — you can push a canoe off a shore and simply keep going. The right to roam, allemansrätten, means you may land, camp and light a modest fire on almost any uninhabited ground, provided you leave it as you found it. Few freedoms translate so directly into a week of your life. The paddling is unhurried and forgiving. Lakes link to lakes by short streams and the occasional portage, where you carry the canoe a few hundred metres between one sheet of water and the next. There are no rapids to fear on the classic routes, no schedule to keep; you cover as much or as little as the weather and your arms decide. In June and July the light barely leaves, so an evening on the water can stretch long past what your watch insists is bedtime. Each night you choose an island. There are thousands, most no larger than a tennis court, ringed with pine and smooth granite warmed by the day's sun. You draw the canoe up, pitch the tent, swim in water clean enough to drink after filtering, and cook as the loons call across the still surface. Ospreys fish the shallows; if you are quiet, a beaver may pass at dusk. The self-reliance is real but gentle, which makes this an unusually kind introduction to sleeping in the wild. What stays with you is the simplicity. No lodge, no booking for the night ahead, no decision more complex than which island looks best in the evening light. For a family it is among the easiest ways onto genuinely wild ground, and for anyone it is a reminder that adventure need not be extreme to be complete. A canoe, a tent and a lake full of islands is very nearly enough.