Finland/Sweden 3/16/2023 |
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Thursday 3/16/2023 - Sámi Culture in JokkmokkWe woke up at around 5:30 a.m. It was quite bright in our room as we hadn't closed the shade on the north-facing window. We took showers. When I opened the east-facing shade, I could see that the trees were covered in hoarfrost and were shining in the sun. It was stunning. Hoarfrost is frozen water vapor which crystallizes when the weather conditions are just right. While he was getting dressed, Craig encouraged me to go right outside to get some photos before the sun melted it away. I didn't need much convincing.If the hoarfrost was impressive from a distance, it was all the more magical up close. The ice crystals which formed on the branches of the trees were huge! I can't even describe it; it was other-worldly. They seemed more like geologic crystals than ice crystals. I have never witnessed this phenomenon in real-life before, and I am glad that we were awake early enough to experience it. Breakfast started at 8 a.m., and as we walked over to the main building, Craig got to see the hoarfrost up-close on tree branches as well as on some chain links on the bridge to the main building. We ate breakfast with Humberto and Max. We had raspberry juice and coffee to drink. Then we were served a platter of meat, cheese, fruit, bread, jelly, and salmon. There was also a menu, and I ordered a waffle and Craig got an "arctic benedict" along with muesli and yogurt. We left the hotel at 10 o'clock and it was ~1 hour drive to Jokkmokk. We met Anna, a Sámi reindeer herder, at the Arctic Circle rest stop in Jokkmokk. We got off the bus at the rest stop to take some photos of the Arctic Circle sign, as well as a Sámi lavvo (teepee-like structure) and the Sámi flag. Anna greeted Gosia and Taru, and instructed Taru to follow her car to her property. When we arrived at her home, we got out of the bus, and Anna introduced herself and told us a bit about her family. Her husband Erik was out herding reindeer, and her two young boys were at school. They have two dogs: one for hunting and one for herding. We immediately saw two reindeer, but they were not actually Anna's. They belong to someone else, but they know that Anna will be feeding her reindeer, and they want in on it! We proceeded to her reindeer pen to feed the reindeer some lichen. There appears to be plenty of lichen in this area (hanging from trees, etc.), as opposed to in northern Finland, where it has been overgrazed. There are three categories of reindeer who are kept in the fenced in pen at home: the sick/weak who can't make it on their own, special reindeer who are sort of like pets, and unmarked babies. Not all babies are able to be marked in the summer because perhaps you can't find them at marking time. But they need to be contained until the next marking period, because if a baby is found unmarked and without its mother, it is considered up for grabs. Any babies in Anna's pen were 10 months old. She explained how they cut their ears to mark them. The Sámi can recognize their reindeer's ear marks at a great distance. She explained her husband Erik's mark as well as her son's. They start a herd for their children at a very young age. They make a promise to the reindeer to protect them, and in return, the reindeer sustain them. Anna explained that in 2019, they lost 50% of their herd because it rained a lot and froze the ground. The reindeer couldn't dig through the ice to find the lichen. This is just one way in which climate change is putting their lifestyle at risk. Anna gave us some lichen and the reindeer ate it out of our bare hands. One of the reindeer was named Pikachu ("I didn't name him!" said Anna with a laugh). She pointed out that if we were very quiet, we could hear a clicking noise made by the reindeer's claws when they walk. This helps the reindeer to distinguish between other reindeer and potential predators. After some quality time with the reindeer, we followed Anna to the lavvo, a teepee-like structure with a fire in the middle. We sat on the ground on reindeer hides, and those who couldn't sit on the floor were given chairs. Anna poured us lingonberry lemonade and then prepared a nice lunch for us over the fire. She was very adept at cooking on the fire, and did so while talking to us about Sámi culture. The first course was smoked, salted moose meat served on flatbread made with reindeer fat. Yum! The main course was Sámi wedding soup, containing incredibly tender reindeer back strap, potatoes, and carrots. Anna said that Sámi wedding soup is very competitive, and that people will judge / gossip about one another's recipes. Hers sure was good! She had also made a tomato soup for any vegetarians in the group. And for dessert, a slice of Swedish chocolate cake called kladdkaka. (This was so good that I looked up a recipe online and made it after we arrived home). It was all so delicious. After lunch, Anna then served coffee, which is a Sámi staple of hospitality. In fact, when visiting someone's lavvo, you normally sit near the doorway until the coffee is on and that is the invitation to enter. Anna told us a bit about the history of the Sámi and how they have been discriminated against and forced to migrate to different areas based on the whims of their colonizers. Like many other indigenous peoples, children were stolen from their parents and assimilated. They were beaten for speaking their own language. People were arbitrarily assigned as Swedish or Norwegian, with members of the same family split up. Northern Sámi were forced to migrate south, and were told that the hunting/fishing Sámi in the south would welcome them with open arms. But at the same time, the Southern Sámi were being told that the Northern Sámi would be invading their territory,. The colonizers liked to cause this kind of conflict and then just sit back and watch it unfold. Erik's grandfather had a herd of 1500 reindeer when he was forced to migrate south. But the reindeer wouldn't all come with him; many turned back. So his herd was decimated by the time he arrived south. Colonizers also introduced the Sámi to alcohol just to cause problems. The Sámi have been marginalized and pushed up into the mountains, but now the mountains are desirable for skiing and other recreation, so they are even taking that land away from them. We learned that, like salmon, reindeer return to where they were born to have their calves. But wind farms (legal and illegal) and mining ventures have taken over those habitats, leaving many reindeer with an uncertain future. The history of the Sámi has been written by their oppressors, and they are now starting to write their own history (their written language is only 40 years old). Anna fights for the rights of her people and raises awareness by hosting tourists. Anna taught us that the term "Lapland" is offensive to the Sámi. The word "lap" means "rag", and is used as a racial slur. Using this "l-word" is equivalent to using the "n-word". Although the "n-word" has been outlawed in Sweden, when the Sámi asked for the name "Lapland" to be changed to their preferred term of "Sápmi", the request was denied, and they were told that it was "totally different." Anna taught us about joiking, a kind of singing/yodeling that expresses the heart of a person or thing. You don’t joik "about" something/someone...you joik them themselves. Joiking someone is also a way of bringing someone’s spirit back from the parallel world after they die. Anna and her husband Erik have two sons. She asked us to close our eyes or stare into the fire as she joiked her eldest son for us. It was beautiful. She asked that no one record it, so of course we honored that. She also asked for a moment of silence afterwards, and you could hear a pin drop. Anna explained that she met her husband Erik at the Sámi market. She also explained that silver is believed to protect the Sámi from evil spirits. Her kids go to Sámi school, which is more conducive to their semi-nomadic lifestyle. They speak to their children solely in Sámi, since Swedish is onmipresent (TV, etc.) Ironically, when their children are with anyone who doesn't speak Sámi, they will automatically switch to Swedish in order to be inclusive, even though they have been, and continue to be, excluded from mainstream society in many ways. After our amazing visit with Anna, we drove back to the hotel. The hotel had a fika waiting for us, and we sat in the restaurant with Cindy and Kevin. Craig had an IPA and I had coffee, and we had cookies to eat. When the staff were clearly ready to clean up from the fika to begin preparations for dinner, Cindy and Kevin invited us to their cabin to have some wine. Their cabin was on the land as opposed to on the frozen river like ours, but they had a full upstairs loft and an entire wall of west-facing windows. (Though it was sunset time, they kept the blinds closed due to the bright light and serious heat). We had a ball listening to Cindy and Kevin's amazing travel stories. We gave them one of our "business cards" which notes us as "anecdotal anthropologists." They loved that, and we unanimously agreed for them to be the inaugural members of our Southern U.S. chapter. Thank you, Kevin and Cindy, for your hospitality.We had a great time with you two! Before we knew it, it was 6 p.m. and time for another 6-course dinner. So we headed over to the main building and sat with Cindy and Kevin once again. Craig got an IPA, and we both had red wine. The presentation of tonight's food was beautiful, with many edible flowers providing a pop of color. One of the appetizers was to be eaten off of a clothespin! So creative! Next, they gave us a little white object that looked like a Tums tablet, and told us not to eat it. This piqued our curiosity. Once everyone had a tablet in a little dish in front of them, they poured hot water on it and it expanded into a facecloth. Good thing that they warned us not to eat it ahead of time! With all of the unusual food they were serving, we easily could have popped that "pill" and ended up with a facecloth expanding in our stomachs! What a clever way to clean your hands between courses. Once again, at the conclusion of the meal, they showed us a printed menu:
 Unlike last night, when the few other patrons at the hotel were eating at the same time as our large, loud group, tonight there was a second seating after ours. (We were happy about this because last night we felt a little guilty occupying so much of the dining room and being raucous.) Because of that, our dinner experience was shorter than last night, concluding at around 8:15. On our walk back to our cabin, we looked for the northern lights, but we didn't see anything. Craig got a beer from the minibar and I posted to Facebook and Instagram about the day's activities. Craig took an occasional look outside for northern light activity. When we were ready for bed at around 10:15 p.m., we took one final look outside, just to make sure that there were no lights to be seen. Tomorrow we would head south to Stockholm, so tonight was our last chance to see northern lights without city light pollution. But we didn't see anything. Jokkmokk |
 Hoarfrost  Hoarfrost  Hoarfrost  Arctic Circle, Jokkmokk  Anna shows us the lichen that the reindeer eat  Craig feeds reindeer  Anna and her reindeer  Anna and the lavvo  Eating lunch in the lavvo  Sámi delicacies See all photos from March 16 |
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