Djupdöveln, Torsåker

The Devil's Tarn

A dark forest lake surrounded by spruce with mist rising from the black water and Djupdövelsberget beyond — West Northland Illustration

Djupdöveln is a lake and tarn in Kramfors municipality, in the province of Ångermanland, within Västernorrland County. It lies in Torsåkers district, a little more than seven kilometres north-northwest of the village of Nyland, and belongs to the main drainage basin of Ångermanälven. The land around it is broken and steep, crowned by the nearby height of Djupdövelsberget. In Norrland place-names the word carries a transferred sense: a 'devilishly deep hole', a bottomless pool, a dark and inaccessible forest tarn. Djupdöveln means, almost literally, the deep devil's hole, or the bottomless devil's tarn. The water is black where the sky enters it. The surrounding spruce hold the shore in shadow even at noon. We are looking into what has been seen there, and what has not come back.