FÅRTEX® BECOMES A GLACIER BLANKET

Glaciers in Sweden — and around the world — are melting at an increasingly rapid pace.

The deep blue ice within the glaciers is disappearing and no longer regenerating the way it used to. This melting contributes to rising sea levels, more frequent natural disasters, and negatively impacts nearby ecosystems.

Oskar Kihlborg, an experienced adventurer and glacier expert, saw the rapid changes firsthand while guiding expeditions on Kilimanjaro. Alarmed by the speed of the melting from year to year, he returned home determined to take action. That’s when he launched the climate awareness project Glacier Blanket — an initiative designed to highlight and visualize the effects of climate change.

Wool Rebel is one of the key partners in the project, and together with Oskar, has produced a Glacier Blanket made from 100% Swedish wool. The wool comes from Swedish sheep farms and is a leftover material that would otherwise go to waste. It is washed and carded in Sweden without any added substances or harmful chemicals.

In spring, large wool rolls are transported on skis and laid out on Björlings Glacier on Kebnekaise. The Glacier Blanket remains in place throughout the summer, protecting the glacier from melting. Wool has incredible temperature-regulating properties — it doesn’t just warm when it’s cold, it can also retain coolness when it’s hot.

The wool rolls are unrolled and sewn together by hand, forming a 200 square meter blanket — the Glacier Blanket.

At the beginning of summer, the blanket lies flat. But as the surrounding glacier melts, the blanket gradually rises — like a sculpture — as the ice underneath is preserved. In the fall, the amount of ice saved is measured, and the blanket is rolled up again to dry over the winter.

During the summers of 2023 and 2024, the centimeter-thick wool protected the glacier from 3.2 meters of melt.

The County Administrative Board has granted permission to lay the Glacier Blanket in the same location for three more years. But the question remains: after three more years of melting, will there be anything left beneath the blanket besides a glacier-shaped sculpture?

Today, the Glacier Blanket is a visual climate project, but the long-term vision is to develop a scalable solution that could protect larger parts of glaciers — especially those whose disappearance could directly impact society, such as near railways, villages, or farmland.

A woolly dream we hope can come true.

The team behind the project includes adventurer Oskar Kihlborg, project manager John Norling, glacier scientist Liza Cash, glacier blanket producer Wool Rebel, and a strong group of wool rollers: Cassi Fotinos, Emil Norling, Emma Norling, Evalena Rask, Niclas Norling, Nils Apelman, and Paul Svensson.