Right now in the north of Sweden houses, sports centers, schools and every other thinkable building are covered in meters and meters of snow. This makes everything look like a winter wonderland, though what you might not think about too closely is when the temperature rises all that wonderful snow  turns wet…

That causes innumerable problems, roofs falling in for example. In Sweden there is a law that says that if you don’t remove the snow from your roof then you cannot claim insurance from any insurance company for the damage of your roof collapsing. That means that when people realize they have snow accumulated on their roofs they rush up on to the roofs to remove it.

Especially at the weekends you will see people up on their roofs madly trying to get rid of the snow that is rapidly getting heavier. The difference between powder snow and wet snow is that powder snow becomes extremely heavy on a warm sunny days.

When shoveling snow from the roof tops some people use lifelines, some people don’t. You can also see a lot of children up there since they are light and probably also want to earn a little bit of pocket money. Older people can’t really get up there as well as they once could so they hire companies to do the job for them, turning warm winter days into a profitable business.

In the cities, companies are employed to remove snow from public buildings (no kids are used then!). Streets are blocked off while the snow gets shovelled off the roof tops and hits the sidewalk in heavy thuds, similar to an avalanche, which is actually quite dangerous, and which is why it is a very serious procedure blocking off the areas that are being worked on. Removing the snow also holds a preemptive function for peoples safety.

Copyright: Jennifer Gosser-Duncan