Ferries to Finland leave from Holmsund, crossing the narrowest part of the Gulf of Bothnia, the Kvarken, to Vaasa on the other side. This small town of about six thousand people at the mouth of the Ume River serves as the port of Umeå, the biggest city in northern Sweden, about twenty kilometres upstream. For riders, it is the start of the Blue Highway, the route that runs west from the Baltic across Sweden and over the mountains to Mo i Rana in Norway, following rivers and lakes for much of the way, which gives it its name.
Holmsund grew up around sawmills in the nineteenth century, when timber floated down the Ume River from the forests of the interior was cut here and shipped abroad. The sawmills are mostly gone, but the port remains, and the town has a quiet, maritime feel, with wooden houses, a church and a harbour. Across the water, Obbola has an old wooden church and a paper mill, and the coast around is a landscape of low islands, sandy beaches and pine forests.
The Kvarken archipelago, the islands and shallows off this coast, is a World Heritage Site along with the High Coast, because the land here is also rising after the ice age, and new islands appear from the sea as the shoreline moves. The landscape is flat and low, with thousands of islands and skerries, and the light over the water in summer is soft and long.
For riders, the start of the Blue Highway is gentle: the road west from Umeå follows the Ume River through farmland and forest, with long straights and easy curves. It becomes more remote as it heads inland toward Lycksele and the mountains, with long stretches of forest and few towns. Holmsund has fuel and a few places to eat, and Umeå has every service. Summers are short and light, with long evenings and almost endless twilight around midsummer. Watch for moose and reindeer on the roads, and expect cool, changeable weather, with rain and wind off the gulf. Mosquitoes in the forests can be fierce in July.