Volgsjö

Volgsjö stands near the lake of the same name in the forested interior of Lapland. Forest Sámi families and settlers lived across a wide district that belonged to the parish of Åsele, far from its church. The settlement grew around a place of worship, where people arriving by water or forest paths needed somewhere to stay during church festivals.

On Daniel Danielsson's farm, established in 1774, visiting priests preached to Sámi people in a timber barn. Settlers and Forest Sámi asked for a chapel of their own, and permission was granted in 1783. Petrus Gavelin became the first resident preacher that year, but the small and poor community needed eleven years to finish its timber church. Volgsjö was renamed Vilhelmina in 1804 after Queen Frederica Dorothea Wilhelmina, and became a separate parish in 1812.