Sápmi - a pale blue winter's dream in the far north

Finding the quiet and the dim light of kaamos in Inari and Sevettijärvi

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By Kirsikka Moring in Inari and Sevettijärvi, in Northern Lapland
     
      A whirl of white sucks up the road ahead, and all that can be seen out of the car's windscreen are snowflakes dancing and waving in every direction.
      The trip from Inari north to Sevettijärvi ends right here.
      There is nothing for it but to turn around and crawl gingerly back from whence we came. The speedometer barely twitches away from zero.
     
This is all part of chilling out in Lapland, and not in the temperature sense.
      There is no way up here one is going to let speed-blindness creep up unawares.
      Travel in Lapland - or more precisely Sápmi; not the land of the Lapps, but the land of the Sámi - is full of surprises.
      Every stretch has a character of its own, challenging and rewarding in its way.
     
The deep midwinter is by far the richest time for the imagination up here, at a latitude well beyond the Arctic Circle.
      The snow is fresh, and more is added to the blanket in short, intensive pulses.
      Oh, and "there is no natural light to speak of, for the sun only brushes against the horizon".
      No. WRONG.
      Even by day the moon shines down, almost dazzlingly bright. The sun hidden behind the fells does appear, for a couple of hours either side of noon.
      Catch it if you can!
     
The myths and Shamanist stories of the land of the indigenous Sámi peoples of the far northern reaches of Fennoscandia - tales of strange thieving creatures such as Staalos and Kufittars, or seers that rear up out of pools of whirling water to tell your fortune - they are here, all around you; not ancient tradition, not words in some ancient tome.
      There is a swishing noise.
      Is that some flying witch there, borne along by the whirling snow?
      On the border of twilight and darkness, the ears and eyes begin to play tricks.
     
The only sound breaking the silence is the crunch of one's boots in the crisp snow.
      But if one were to record the silence in your head, it is possible to hear a rich panoply of sounds: the whistling of the wind, the sound of reindeer huffing and bleating, and somewhere in the distance a solitary crow in flight.
      The quiet is as eery as the shadows cast by the moon.
     
It is no wonder that scientists who have travelled in the Sámi regions of the north through the centuries, from Johannes Schefferus onwards, would whisper of "pagan rites" and worshipping stones.
      Schefferus (1621-1679) was a Swedish humanist and the author of Lapponia (1673), a study of the topology of the region and the anthropology of its Sámi inhabitants.
     
"The tourists really know next to nothing about the Sámi, even today. They think we all live in kotas [the kota, or goahti in the Sámi language, is a conical tent-like dwelling resembling a Native Indian tepee]. And that we are scared stiff of bears. There are those up here, too", say the Inari Sámi Maarit, Into, and Jan-Erik Paadar.
      It is mostly foreign tourists who visit their reindeer farm, from Japan, North America, France, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand...
      "They don't quite know what to make of our modern lifestyle. Sometimes they even go poking into our closets looking for sprites and goblins and the little people."
      The Paadars know how people want to see Sámi culture. They have been involved in the making of dozens of movies and advertising spots and documentaries.
      Most recently, reindeer herder Into flew into the air in a sleigh pulled by half a dozen reindeer when an Italian film-crew needed shots for a throat-pastille commercial.
     
A trip through the forest on a sled pulled by a reindeer is the sort of experience that stops time in its tracks.
      In the half-darkness, a Lapp reindeer dog, used for herding and guarding the animals, looks disconcertingly like it might actually be a wolf.
      In the woods, one finds inside oneself that small human being who tries to understand what goes on between a reindeer's ears, and to grasp the fact that a reindeer is actually quite an intelligent animal.
      It always finds its own way home, which is more than we can sometimes boast.
     
The Paadar reindeer ranch tailors any and all kinds of experiences for the tourists, from cross-country skiing and skiing towed behind a cantering reindeer to snow-shoe treks or sleighrides.
      The trips can be for half an hour or they can last days on end.
      Why is it we lay these things on just for the foreign tourists?
      It seems ridiculous, when it requires only a short car-ride from the ski-slopes and cabin villages of the bustling Saariselkä winter resort, for the thousands of Finns who go there to experience a very different kind of day with a Sámi family.
     
There are two hotels in the little village of Inari, in the municipality of the same name that is both Finland's largest by area (more than 17,000 square kilometres!) and also the administrative capital of the Finnish Sámi region.
      For example Hotel Kultahovi arranges excursions with local entrepeneurs to reindeer farms in winter and summer, and trips to the 18th century church deep in the forest at Pielpajärvi, a former "winter village" and gathering-place, or to the mythical Ukonkivi ("Ukko's Stone"), on an island in Lake Inari, used by used by the ancient Sámi people as a holy sacrificial place and burial ground. The name "Ukko" refers to the ancient thunder-God in the Finnish Kalevala mythology.
     
Tourists are "taken to the reindeer", as Liisa Holmberg puts it.
      Holmberg runs courses in tourism at the local training centre in Inari, and what she means is excursions for instance to the places where the domesticated yet free-ranging animals come to feed.
      A trip into the world of the Sámi is probably best begun with a visit to Siida, the Sám Museum and Northern Lapland Nature Centre in Inari, which has collected a fine exhibition of Sámi history, the modern culture of the region, and the flora and fauna of Northern Lapland.
      The museum keeps its doors open around the year, and there are a string of events and festivals, according to Tarmo Jomppanen, who is Finland's only museum director to have his own herd of reindeer and his own ear-mark to distinguish his animals.
     
Briefed by the displays at Siida, it is time to head even further north, around 150 kilometres to Sevettijärvi at the other end of Lake Inari.
      The lake is no puddle: it is Finland's second-deepest and third-largest body of water and sprawls over more than 1,000 square kilometres.
      In Sevettijärvi the traveller is met at the Sanila reindeer ranch by 24-year-old Natalia Sanila, a representative of the younger generation of Skolt Sámis. She is standing on tiptoe on a chair and fiddling with an odd-looking device that leads to a curtain rail.
      "Oh, hello there. Just a minute. I'm trying to fix up a field for my mobile. Otherwise I have to trek outside into the yard and walk around in a sort of zig-zag fashion."
      It's not only annoyingly inconvenient, it's downright chilly: the temperature outside today is a bracing minus 29°C (approximately -20°F).
     
The village of Sevettijärvi celebrates 60 years this year.
      This may come as a surprise - some might assume that since we are talking about indigenous peoples the place is hundreds, perhaps thousands of years old.
      But it was 60 years ago that the Skolt Sámi were settled permanently here.
      After the war they were forced out of their homes in parts of Finland ceded to the Soviets, and were obliged to live in internal exile.
     
"We want to make a party of it. We've cried too many tears about the loss of Suonikylä [the village of their ancestors, now behind the Russian border]. We were born here in Sevettijärvi."
      Sanila gathers steam as she paints an image of the celebration she would like to see:
      "No politicans, no poems. A beach disco on the shores of Sevettijärvi Lake, a fashion show of Skolt clothing over the last thousand years, fireworks, a singles party to get the local bachelors married off, and the foreign minister [Alexander Stubb] as the patron of it all. We aren't going to get the President up here, anyway."
      "Oh, yes, and maybe we could have a TV special - Strictly Come Dancing with the Skolts."
     
The Skolt Samis' village elder Veikko Feodoroff would like a celebration that raises the village spirit.
      The most important thing is to keep Sevettijärvi from disappearing off the map.
      A population of 250 is not going to go very far if all the young folk move away.
      Tourism brings employment. The Sámi Path shows the old places to new pairs of eyes.
      And the fells are still the Sámis' second home.
      Welcome to the wide north wilderness - preferably with a guide along. Lapland is a lot more than downhill skiing and after-ski.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 17.1.2009


Links:
  The Sámi People (Wikipedia)
  Skolt Sámis (Wikipedia)
  Tiina Sanila (Wikipedia)
  Siida, the Sámi Museum and Northern Lapland Nature Centre
  Inari, Finland´s largest municipality
  The Sámi (Virtual Finland, also contains some useful links)
  Sevettijärvi (Wikipedia)
  Inari-Lapland Travel Bureau
  Reindeer husbandry in Finland

KIRSIKKA MORING / Helsingin Sanomat
kirsikka.moring@hs.fi