Where to stay in Bengtsfors
Most visitors stay in the centre of Bengtsfors, where a hotel and small guesthouses sit within an easy walk of the shops, the church, and Halmens Hus. The centre suits travellers who want a bed near the lake and the canal, and it makes a steady base for boating and walking out across the Dalsland country. It works for first-timers.
Rooms are few in this small inland town, and they fill across the warmer weeks when the canal traffic is at its busiest. Out beyond the centre the lakes take over. Cabins, campsites, and self-catering cottages stand along the shores of Lelång and the surrounding forest, giving drivers and paddlers a quiet setting close to the water and the woods.
Book ahead for summer. Many visitors who tour the Dalsland Canal base themselves in these lakeside cabins and come into Bengtsfors for supplies, the museum, and the centre of the district.
Things to do in Bengtsfors
Ranked by global recognition; descriptions from Wikidata (CC0).
Museums & Galleries
- Dal–Västra Värmlands Järnväg — railway
- Halmens Hus
- Bengtsfors bilsätesveteraner — working life museum
- Gammelgårdens friluftsmuseum
- Skåpafors Servetthistoria
Churches & Religious Sites
- Bengtsfors kyrka Heritage-listed
- Ärtemarks kyrka Heritage-listed
About Bengtsfors
What is Bengtsfors known for?
Bengtsfors is known for the Dalsland country around it. The town sits among the long lakes and forests of the province, a centre for boating and canoe touring on the chain of waters that the Dalsland Canal links together. Straw work is a local craft.
Halmens Hus, a museum of the old Swedish art of straw weaving, draws visitors to the centre, and the lakes, the woods, and that quiet craft tradition give the small inland town its character.
What are the main landmarks in Bengtsfors?
Bengtsfors kyrka stands in the centre of the town, the parish church beside the lake and the canal. The straw house draws the curious. Halmens Hus keeps the old craft of straw weaving alive in its galleries, while Ärtemarks kyrka serves a parish in the wider district, and the locks and channels of the Dalsland Canal mark the waterway that ties the lake country of the province together around the town.
What is the history of Bengtsfors?
Bengtsfors grew at a waterfall on the river between the lakes. The falling water powered early mills and ironwork, and a small settlement gathered at the rapids in the forest country of Dalsland through the older centuries of the province. The lakes shaped the trade.
Timber and iron moved on the open water of the lakes that fed the falls. The canal made the modern town. When the Dalsland Canal was cut through the chain of lakes in the nineteenth century, Bengtsfors became a place of locks, traffic, and trade on the waterway, and industry along the falls drew workers and built up the centre that still stands beside the lake.
The mills have largely fallen quiet. Now the canal carries pleasure boats rather than cargo, and the town keeps its lake-country trade alive through tourism, the straw museum, and the quiet forest district around Bengtsfors kyrka.
Where is Bengtsfors?
Bengtsfors lies in the north-eastern part of Västra Götaland County, set in the lake and forest country of Dalsland in western Sweden. The land is a maze of long narrow lakes, low ridges, and deep woodland, the town gathered where the river drops between the waters on its way south. Forest covers much of the district.
The lake Lelång stretches north from the town, and the channels of the Dalsland Canal thread the chain of lakes together through the rolling country of the province.
What is the climate of Bengtsfors?
Bengtsfors has a cool temperate climate with a clear inland character. Winters are cold and snowy, the lakes freezing over and the forest country lying well away from the moderating reach of the western sea through the dark months of the year. Summers are mild and green.
Long northern daylight draws the evenings out late around midsummer, the warmest season and the busiest weeks for boating and paddling on the canal lakes around the town. Rain and snow fall across the seasons here.
How do you get to Bengtsfors?
Bengtsfors sits inland in the lake country of northern Dalsland, reached mostly by road. Country roads run to the town through the forest from the larger centres of the province, and buses serve the district from the towns nearer the coast and the main railways. The way in winds among the lakes.
The nearest large airport lies at Göteborg far to the south, so most visitors arrive by car, the journey crossing the woods and waters of the north-eastern county to reach the canal town.