LKAB Gruvmuseum

LKAB Mining museum


Useful Information

Location: Malmberget.
(?, ?)
Open: closed.
[2022]
Fee: closed.
[2022]
Classification: SubterraneaMining Museum
Light: LightIncandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:  
Guided tours:  
Photography:  
Accessibility:  
Bibliography:  
Address: LKAB Gruvmuseum, Puoitakvägen, 98332 Malmberget.
Gällivare Turistbyrå (Tourism Office), Centralplan 3, SE-98232 Gällivare, Sweden, Tel: +46-970-16660, Fax: +46-970-66739. E-mail: contact
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then.
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History

12-MAR-1888 Malberget founded as mining town.
2018 museum closed due to relocation and building demolished.
2020/2021 the whole town was moved due to the danger of mine collapses.

Geology

Malmberget's ores are hosted in Precambrian volcanic rocks. The entire deposit complex has been largely metamorphosed to gneiss and strongly folded. The apatite-bearing iron ore consists of a number of ore sheets that may have originally been connected. The main ore zone is 6.5 km long.

The principal iron ore mineral is magnetite, some areas contain significant amounts of haematite. Apatite contents vary considerably, the average phosphorus content is lower than 0.8%.

Description

The LKAB Gruvmuseum (LKAB mining museum) at Gällivare gives an insight into the daily life of the miners. How they worked, but also how they lived. The museum is guided by miners, who tell first hand. The museum also has a fine mineral collection with a huge number of Swedish minerals. There are also the three Royal Rocks, each one symbolizing the visits of a Swedish King in the mine. The visits were Oskar I. in 1894, Gustav VI. Adolf in 1952, and the present King Carl XVI. Gustav in 1990.

The mining museum shows LKAB's 250-year old history, starting from the days when the ore was discovered and ending in the present. It includes a visit to nearby Kåkstan (Shanty Town), a reconstruction of the first mining community and open air museum. It is reconstructed with revived houses, stores, and cafés. The official day of the foundation of Malmberget is the day when the first ore train took off from Gällivare.

The museum was located in Hermelin's mining cottage. The building was erected in 1919, nearby the headframe of the Hermelinsgruvan was built in 1921. It was used as a crew house until the 1960s.

One special thing is that Malberget moves. Every time the open cast mine reaches the town, the housed are abandoned, the inhabitants move to new houses. Other houses had to be abandoned due to instabilities in the ground, caused by underground mining. Some time ago a large subsidence pit formed right in the middle of the town. It was monitored, but it spread. The uninhabitable area was continually growing as underground mining undermined the area. Seismic events caused by the mining regularly shook the remaining parts of Malmberget. The mining caused increasing damages to the buildings of Malberget and finally the entire Malmberget town was moved in 2020/2021. The museum was demolished and is currently closed. We guess the reopening of the museum was not the main concern during this huge relocation. At the moment we hope it will be reopened at a new location in a few years.