Nusnäs Dala Horse Workshops

The village of Nusnäs, about 12 km south of Mora, is the centre of Dala horse production, and visitors can watch the entire process in the workshops of the two main producers: Nils Olsson Hemslöjd and Grannas A. Olsson. The carving, sanding, painting, and decorating are all done by hand, and the workshops welcome visitors during working hours.

The Dala horse shape and colour scheme are rigidly traditional — the characteristic orange-red with white floral decoration on a dark green saddle, or the blue and yellow variants — and the painters work from patterns that have been used for generations. It takes skilled craftspeople years to be able to paint the curling flower patterns freehand at production speed. You can buy horses of every size directly from the workshops, including sizes that won't survive a checked bag.

things to do sight
A story
The Dala horse became Sweden's global icon almost by accident. At the 1939 World's Fair in New York, a display of Nusnäs horses attracted enormous interest, and American buyers began ordering them in quantity. The tradition had existed for centuries as a local craft and occasional toy — a carved horse was a practical gift from a journeyman craftsman staying with a farming family — but mass export made it Sweden's most recognised symbol within a generation.