Other hydro powers
Lekgruset, Ammerån

Lekgrus i Ammerån, a part of the project Other hydro powers, supported by Swedish arts grants committee. The project connect several rivers and their nearby peoples in Sweden and Canada.

In collaboration with Eco streams for life, Jämtland and Grevåkerskolan Hammerdal.

Lekgrus = spawn gravel, where in Swedish the word for spawn is the same as for play..

From an initial field trip meeting with biologists of the eco streams for life project that restores (amongst others) the river Ammerån, and their explanations to us what they are working on, we especially took with us the word Lekgrus (spawn gravel). The word inspired us to reach out to children living near the river, and together with Grevåkerskolan in Hammerdal, we could set up a collaboration around the river ecosystems, and particularly the way fish use gravel as a nursery for their young.

The school and teachers of 4 classes (60 kids) planned together with us and the biologists a week dedicated to the river in May 2025. In this week we held workshops making tiny sculptures of river clay for the spawning fish together, the children studied river eco systems, the history of rafting in the river, and the life and family making of the trout and other fish. On the last day we went out to Ammerån, and placed the Lekgrus in the river bed.  The biologists from eco streams for life showed us a suitable place, and presented their work with restauration of the river.  For every tiny sculpture that was lowered into the water, a greeting from the young artist to the young fish was written and drawn with watercolor. Many of them was wishing the young fish good luck, and many wished to catch and eat the fish once it was grown up. Which would be about the same time as the human kids would be young adults. Given, of course, that Ammerån still runs healthy and alive between Solbergsvattnet and Indalsälven then.f