Snow Place Like Home

Super skilled reindeer dog Vira, hard at work. Photo by Carl-Johan Utsi
 

I’ve just finished my education. I have a master of technology, with computers as my major. I’ve broadened it with business administration and law. I don’t want to work in computer technology though, it’s way too boring. That’s why I’m adding the law. But having an education is always good on paper, if nothing else it shows you’re able to learn stuff. Later on I’ll want to get into politics. There aren’t that many Saami people out there, and someone needs to speak up. Getting into the government is hard as it is, and getting into the government and start pushing Saami causes probably isn’t going to happen. I’ll be going for the Saami Council. I want to get things straight. There are a lot of things that aren’t the way they should be, and I want to work on solutions for that.

The way I see it, the Saami Council’s one common cause is to gain more strength and power. But the way to get there is what’s keeping the parties apart. The two parties the furthest apart are Boazueagiggàdiid oktavuohta, the reindeer owner’s party, and the Hunting and Fishing Saami party. The reason for the split goes back to this law old law that has a lot of eugenic undertones. The law is very much based on the notion of how the Lapp should stay Lapp—he shouldn’t be moving into houses, he should just stick to being nomadic. But living in a house is way more comfortable than living in a tent in the woods, so of course the hunting and fishing Saami, people who weren’t working in reindeer husbandry, got houses. But according to the law that means you cease being Saami. By law only the nomadic reindeer owners have right to call themselves Saami. If you live outside a Saami village that keeps reindeers you’re automatically just a regular citizen. That law tore the people apart.

A Saami village isn’t just a geographical location, it’s a bit like a cooperative economic association too. I was born and raised in the Luokta-Mavas Saami village, and around there it was never an issue. People without reindeers know I’m from a reindeer owning family, but it doesn’t really matter. But in Västerbotten for example, some people can be extremely bitter. I went to this dinner and the only thing the man and woman next to me talked about was how they had been robbed of their heritage. Going there makes me act real careful, it’s very much treading on thin ice and I won’t tell people about my background. And then there are regular Swedes to mind as well. I get away easy since I’m a student too, everyone knows what a student is.

If I could change one thing it would be the ignorance in society. I see it everywhere, from people sending text messages to TV shows, to just reactions to my name. Most folks are getting used to unusual names, people come from all over the world to live in new countries and they all have strange names, so on paper everyone’s fine with my name, but then they meet me and I look Swedish and I speak Swedish, and that’s just too much for them. I once introduced myself to a guy, and he went “What kind of a fucking name is that?” Just because it’s something they don’t recognize people suddenly think it’s ok to react in whatever way they fancy. If there was just some proper education on Saami culture in the curriculum I think all that would be gone in a second.

That kind of overall ignorance is the worst I think, that and the fact that nothing can ever be just about one Saami cause, it always needs to include the whole world. Like now with the Nordmaling case. Landowners are suing three Saami villages. It’s been in court for a long time. But comments on discussion websites are never just about the dispute, they’re all rambling on about taking the right to call yourself Saami, or views on whether or not benefits should be given on the basis of ethnicities. You see what I mean? It can never just be about one thing when it’s about the Saami.

Now I hear people saying tax money is paying for the truck transportation of reindeers. I don’t know one single person who thinks transporting reindeers by truck is free and easy. People have been doing it for a while, a few decades or so, and the main reason is that the regular routes have been destroyed by clear-felling areas and dams. The problem with the clear-felling is that people also make drainage ditches around them. The drainage kills the lichen, which is vital for the reindeers. And it doesn’t grow back either, lichen only grows like a centimetre every 25 years or something. Vast parts of the reindeer owners prefer, and still do move their reindeers the old way. Pretty much everyone who lives where there haven’t been rivers or ore move their reindeers the old way.

Elle-Máret and Inga-Sara live in Finland, close to the Russian border, and have had their pasture grounds spoilt by the forestry company Stora Enso.
The whole landowner/reindeer owner feud goes back to this. The reindeer owners loose their routes and the landowners claim the reindeers destroy the sprouts. The animals graze lichen of the stems of full-grown trees, and the snow-covered plants get pushed down, and apparently this make them grow up crooked, and that’s bad for the landowners, because I guess they want their trees straight.

The whole thing gets worse because of the physical distance between landowners and reindeer owners. The reindeer owners are just visitor for the winter, just strangers, so no real relationship has ever time to develop between the two, and there is no understanding for each other’s industries. The Nordmaling case is also on very Saami hostile land.

The only way to resolve this, the way I see it, is for the government to step in. The Saami have constantly been loosing ground, they have always been stepping aside and been deprived of rights. The government need to get on top of this. It’s like two kids playing, and the parents aren’t watching. And then the kids get into a fight, and the parents still don’t care. So the question is, when are the parents going to stop this fight?

The feuds have a devastating effect on people’s lives. The final ruling in the Nordmaling case hasn’t been made yet [when this article was written], but in a previous case a group of Saami villages were sued and lost to the landowners, and the villagers are now several million euros in debt to the landowners as a result of the damage claim. There are maybe 50 people in every village, and they will be sharing that cost amongst them.

And these people can’t even go to the store anymore. The hostility and the people going “You know you’re not supposed to be here!” The feeling of not being welcome in your own land. And it’s not even your own land! It used to be one land, but then someone else got there and drew a lot of different borders and decided it was a completely different land.

The best thing about being Saami? It’s good to have a language of your own, and the solidarity is great, having a connection to people in a lot of other countries. I guess that’s why we’ll easily travel 700 miles to go to a party with 20 others.

NILA JANNOK
On January 20 the court ruled in favour of the Saami villages in the Nordmaling case, and the reindeer owners will keep the right to use the concerned areas.