6/5 -- Sami Culture, Reindeer Farm, Home-hosted Dinner

Today was all about the local Sami people and Lapland. On our way to the Siida Museum, we stopped at a shop that had an example of a 'bear cave rock' up a hill. This is sort of like a geode without the sparkly stuff -- a huge stone that is somehow empty. In theory it was so named after a Sami  man was caught in a storm near night time and saw an opening near the bottom of a huge rock so he crawled in and slept til morning. When he woke up, he discovered he was toasty warm because of the bear who had snuggled next to him.

Although it wasn't sunny this morning, there was no wind
and the  lake we drove past was like a mirror.

Huge rock with trees growing on it.

Beverly was small and agile enough to
crawl  in -- Jim not so much.

The inside of the rock, thanks to Beverly, when Jim
couldn't quite manage it and my knees suggested I not try.

The steps we had to climb up to get to the cave rock.

Me looking happy now that I am going down.

The museum tells the history and culture of the Sami and includes a small village outside to walk through. One room had a timeline of 10,000 years, the time when the indigenous peoples arrived here, to the current day. It noted what was going on in the rest of the world as well as information about the Sami. There used to be 9 different languages and group types. There are currently 3 left in Finland: Northern, Inari Lake, and Skolt. The Skolt were originally in Russia and their religion after conversion was Eastern Orthodox, so that was the group that provided our lunch yesterday.

An outer ring of the next year took you through the seasons of Lapland in huge photos, followed by a block in the center about the culture of the people. Below are some examples of the local costumes which are personalized to the family. Wearing decorated Sami costumes if you are not Sami is a cultural affront because so  many elements have meaning to the people.

After lunch at the museum, we explored the little village -- there are no remains of the ancient homes because they were portable and also because the Nazis burned their way south fleeing the Russian during WWII. The Sami had been evacuated to the south and returned to their homelands to find......nothing. That was also the time that the government started sending the children to boarding schools, partly because the local situation was so dire. The more modern cabins -- some used up to the 1950s -- had two or 3 rooms with a big stone fireplace in each room. That surprised me, because I figured one would be adequate to heat the home, but maybe not in their winter.

Three room home

 

Two room home with entry hall

 

Snow sleds -- look carefully for one wide 'ski' under the middle.

Two storage sheds

Meat storage to keep animals out.

Inside of smoky sauna

This hay mow lifts the hay above the reindeer's reach

Then we headed to a reindeer farm, to learn about the life of the herders. Reindeer farming used to be a very nomadic life, but the modern world doesn't support that much. This family is part of a cooperative that fences a 40 mile square tract for 4500 reindeer. Each year they lose 15% to cars and predators and are obligated by the government to cull 40% of the herd to keep an ecological balance.  If a reindeer is hit by car, the driver's insurance company pays the owner, determined by the pattern of cuts on the animal's ears. If a predator gets the beast, there is only remuneration if the ears are still there to be analyzed. You can't gain wealth by growing your herd, you can only buy reindeer from someone else in your cooperative who wants to sell. It is complicated to buy reindeer from another cooperative. Farmers pay a per head cost to the cooperative each year to fund the upkeep of the fences.

The other way to increase your income is to have some of the animals available for feeding and petting and to train some to pull sleds and give rides in the winter. Not all reindeer are tractable enough for this work. It takes 4 years for the training and 30% never manage to figure it out. Families also make handicrafts from the horns and hides and other materials and either sell them on their farms.

Our hosts in traditional dress

The reindeer are eager to meet us. Or MAYBE hoping for
a treat.

We got to feed the ones in a different pen, while our
greeters hovered outside hoping for some too.

Mary gets a new friend

These two calves are only a couple weeks old.

This piece of land is next to a wilderness. If you head up
this stream, you will go 70 miles before reaching another house.

We went inside a version of a traditional home, while our host talked more about their lives and clothing. Neither of them grew up speaking Sami, but their 4 kids are learning it. They have 17 year old twins, an 11 year old, and a 3 year old. So far, it looks like the 17 year old daughter has the most interest in carrying on the farm, while her twin brother is more interested in science and technology and the kids are all learning the Sami language in school. Many of the Sami languages disappeared during the years of suppression. Our host's parents were from different Sami backgrounds and could not communicate in Sami because the languages are so different, so they spoke Finnish at home, son he didn't learn it at home and it wasn't taught in schools back then.

Sami clothing was traditionally made of deer hides, but with contact with modern Europeans, wool and cotton became popular. The family colors are documented by the stripes, not the main color of the shirt. The  men wear a colorful hat with four points. Supposedly, a shaman wanted to fishing, but every time he tried, a wind from one of the four directions caused a problem, so he created the hat and stuffed the winds into the corners so that he could fish peacefully. We were served tea in cups made of birch burls. Typically, a person has his or her own cup and never needs another. This man had his father's cup which had a wonderful patina from all the years of use.

Above: Inside of the old style home. Outside below.

They tried to teach us how to  lasso a reindeer. Fred
tried first.

Denis gave it a shot too. Jim actually made it, but I had
wandered off to avoid being forced to try, so I missed it.

We had some down time to plan our packing for tomorrow's flight to Helsinki so we can stay below the lower than usual weight limits, and then it was time to visit a local couple for dinner. Twelve of us joined Kati and Juha at their 12 acre property with several buildings they built. Juha was, among other things, a lumberjack and is now branching into adventure tourism. Kati is an art teacher and artist and we discovered she is just getting started on stained glass. After a tour of the sauna building and the outdoor dining building and her studio, we went in for a dinner of homemade seeded flatbread, cress salad with deep fried fish, reindeer meatloaf with carrots and potatoes, and endd with lingonberries and whipped cream. All of it was wonderful and Kati shared her bread recipe, which we all wanted a copy of.

Juha in front of the firsst building they made, using recycled
materials including the burled pine over his shoulder in back.

Workshop on the left and their house in back. The design
is partially due to finding someone with 14 windows to sell,
buying them all, and making the house fit around them.

One of Kati's projects

Juha and Kati after dinner