For me, visiting the now infamous Stedsans eco-retreat in Halland, southern Sweden was the apotheosis of the Scandinavian dream: apple-cheeked children running barefoot on the forest floor, a lake for swimming, a sauna to warm up in, simple cabins for sleeping and dinner served in the evening on a long table surrounded by trees. When I booked to stay back in 2022 to celebrate my wedding anniversary, it felt like I was going to be walking straight into my Instagram feed, flower-strewn dishes and all.
Only now, it seems like that was as fantastical as it first appeared. This week, a joint investigation by the daily newspapers Dagens Nyheter in Sweden and Politiken in Denmark found the owners of the eco-conscious retreat, chef Flemming Hansen and food writer Mette Helbæk, were now living in Guatemala after apparently going on the run from tax authorities, leaving behind multiple animals and 158 barrels of human waste. The investigation also claimed that waste water was left to run into the forest, with local authorities describing their purported actions as “environmental crime”.
It’s a case that has shocked Scandinavia: Stedsans had attracted international acclaim as the poster child for eco-friendly living – a real example of The Good Life, Scandinavian edition, showing it was possible to live in harmony with nature, run a successful business and bring up a family while doing it. No wonder it all felt too good to be true. The couple reportedly owe the Swedish tax authorities in excess of 6m Swedish krona (£470,000), and have since started a new hotel business in Guatemala.
I find this reality hard to square with the way Helbæk presented the retreat to me in a Zoom interview some months before my visit. She told me about the couple’s desire to build a happy place to bring up their children in an ancient forest, and how lucky they had been to find this one that she felt she had a special connection to: “It’s growing on me that I can hear what trees say to me … and I can sit down and talk to a plant and it will answer me back.” Apparently the forest was giving her messages of love and light, and spirit guides had told her to create peace between all life forms. I wonder what the forest and her spirit guides are whispering about her now – and the authorities who failed to show up and shut them down earlier.
What happened at Stedsans goes beyond the story of a couple claiming to run a Swedish eco-resort while apparently secretly pumping effluent into the forest floor. It calls into question the whole premise of sustainable tourism in the country. In a message posted on their website, Helbæk and Hansen wrote: “We came very far with Stedsans, but we also had to realise on the way that being soul-driven entrepreneurs on a mission in a country where taxes are some of the highest in the world and bureaucracy is relentless, it is an impossible task.” Tourism in this part of the world centres on its extraordinary nature and finding ways to get in touch with it, hike in it, and explore it. If you can’t make a back to nature, simple eco-resort work in Sweden, where can you?
As a travel writer working in Scandinavia, I’ve stayed at other resorts in this region that have been inspired by Stedsans and met young, idealistic hospitality workers who talked about Helbæk and Hansen as though they were heroes. If what happened at Stedsans makes others believe that running an eco-friendly project is “impossible”, Hansen and Helbæk will have damaged more than a small patch of a Swedish forest. Because it’s not true: I’ve met hotel owners all over the region with far lower profiles who can and do make it work within environmental guidelines – so why couldn’t they?
Many people around the world tend to idolise Scandinavia: it’s the region of hygge and lagom and all these difficult to translate concepts that seem like they hold the secret to living a good life. But we should also remember it’s the home of Scandi noir: crime stories where dark things can happen in the vast expanses of countryside, where there are no neighbours to see what you’re doing and it’s easy to find somewhere quiet to bury a body.
As a Brit living in Copenhagen, I’ve often found it hard to marry up those two opposing presentations of Scandinavia but this story does it well: it starts out in a woodland paradise where foraged herbs are steeped for herbal tea, then takes a dark turn as the owners escape to a country where their tax debts can’t follow them. It’s a reminder that nowhere is perfect, not even Scandinavia, and that we should all be wary of taking national stereotypes to heart. After all, Sweden is just like everywhere else: where there’s money to be made, even in nature, there will be bad actors too. It’s also a reminder, as if another were needed, not to take what you see on Instagram at face value.
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Laura Hall is a freelance journalist based in Scandinavia, and writes the monthly newsletter Modern Scandinavian
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