Gafsele
Gafsele is a small Swedish village in Åsele Municipality, Västerbotten County, in the province of Lapland in northern Sweden. Gafsele was founded by the finn Nils Andersson in 1674. Nils arrived from Finland (that was a part of Sweden at the time) as he wanted to avoid being drafted to the war with Russia. Instead he worked his way up the Angerman river until he reached Lapland, where the government promised any man that settled to be tax free for 10 years. The same (Lapp) people already lived in the area but as they had reindeer and Nils was farming, they could live together mainly without conflict. Nils and his wife Brita are said to bring one cow, that they kept during the summer on a small island in the river called Koholmen (small cow island). Before winter they build a small cottage on the Skoludden, and had settled. Brita, Nils wife was famous for her hot temper and for bringing some non-Christian behaviors to the village, such as blessings of the crops, and was brought to justice for this, but Nils talked them out of it. It could otherwise have been fatal, as the punishment for such behavior in princip was death. The most famous story about Nils is the day he saw a small splinter coming down the river and he understood that there was some other settler upstream. he immediately went there and sacred him off, everything upstream belonged to him. Later of course many more settlements were done. Today Gafsele has seen its heyday, and have a population of around 200 people, most engaged in forestry or working in the municipality.
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Coordinates: 64°01′N 17°15′E / 64.017°N 17.250°E