We northerners are alone in experiencing such stark changes between the seasons—from totally white to almost totally green. Farther south, the only alterations are in temperature and humidity—when the dry season is relieved by the rainy season, for example—and to some extent, the colors of the vegetation. But, with the possible exception of the moment the first rains of the monsoon come sweeping across India’s brown-scorched fields, you will never experience anything so absolute as the shift from white winter to green summer up there in the north. Those of us who grew up with it yearn for the changing of the seasons; we sing songs about it, and we feel and believe this is something that all of nature experiences along with us. Or that’s what we used to think before, at least, when we still spent time out in the fields and open country.
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LIFE BENEATH THE SNOW
Leaning toward the snowdrift, bent to the blind driving snow A reindeer stood and sniffed the air, scraped with a cloven toe, And all at once, as deep it dug into the frozen snows A blue-green mossy cluster leapt toward its questing nose16
NORDAHL GRIEG MADE only a quick visit to Finnmarksvidda, but even so, he managed to grasp something essential: the way living creatures—in this case a reindeer—managed to survive in this wintry land. It looks so barren and merciless, but there is, in fact, life beneath the snow—not least the reindeer’s favorite food, reindeer lichen.
The reindeer (caribou to North Americans) was the reason people lived in Norway’s only relatively large area of permafrost. Permafrost is the ground that doesn’t thaw entirely in the summer, but only in the upper, “active” layer. A bit further below, the earth is still frozen and this makes it difficult for any vegetation other than reindeer lichen, heather, and dwarf birch to thrive. Originally, people followed the reindeer herds as they headed north after the last ice age in order to hunt them—just as they had during the ice age, although farther south in Europe in those days. Traces of the hunt are visible in the wealth of rock paintings, especially near the Pyrenees, where reindeer and people lived during the ice age.
Several hundred years ago the Sami people (formerly known as Lapps or Laplanders), thought by many to be the first humans to settle here in the north, began to domesticate reindeer instead of hunting them. In other words, they followed the reindeer on their annual migrations: from the plateau, where they fed on reindeer lichen in the wintertime, to the grassy pastures near the coast in spring, and back to the plateau again in autumn. Gradually, the reindeer got used to the humans, although they never became totally tame. This is how a lifestyle that anthropologists call “semi-nomadic” came about, in which humans follow the animals’ seasonal migrations between two fixed grazing areas—one in winter and one in summer. The pattern of migration is now so established that Sami reindeer herders have permanent homes for both winter and summer use but spend several weeks of each spring and autumn living, literally, on the move. Particularly in spring, when you never know quite when the snow and ice on the lakes and rivers will melt, it can be pretty demanding, and sometimes dangerous, especially for the reindeer. For many reindeer, the migration also involves swimming across a sound in ice-cold water, which is generally the most critical point in the journey.
Contrary to what the schoolbooks used to tell us, however, only a minority of Sami people, those known as flyttsamer, live this way. Most live “normal” lives as farmers and fishermen (“sea Sami”), and as nurses, machine operators, teachers, newspaper editors, job seekers, pensioners, and clothes designers (“city Sami”). But the nomadic group are the “prototypical” Sami who, in many ways, keep the traditional Sami cultural traits alive. Most important of all these is reindeer herding and the related cultural practices: the lavvu (the tent used during the migration); the clothes and tools they carry with them, which are optimally designed for this purpose and are generally made of reindeer hide, antler, or bone; the traditional reindeer races now held at Easter; the meals of bone marrow; the lasso throwing. We can see many examples of reindeer herding as a motif in the work of the best-known Sami artists: John Savio, Iver Jåks, and Nils-Aslak Valkeapää.
For the Sami people who live with and from the reindeer and move with them twice a year, reindeer have been their alpha and omega. And I really do mean the whole alphabet. Reindeer have given them everything they need. Clothes, for a start: in winter they used skaller, footwear made of reindeer hide, fur side out. And in summer, they used komager, also made of reindeer hide, but without fur—or hide boots known as bieksoer, which were also popular among Norway’s “alternative” people in the 1970s. When it got really cold outside, people would wear a pesk, a kind of fur coat. Also tools such as needles and combs used to be made of reindeer antler and bone.
The diet was dominated by reindeer meat, too, generally dried and dipped in boiled black coffee to make it easier to chew. Party food was boiled bone marrow or a reindeer soup known as bidos. Reindeer meat was also a source of income. Previously, the reindeer owners slaughtered their animals themselves, but nowadays they deliver them to the abattoir, other than those the herders retain for their own use.
Last but not least, reindeer were also the Sami’s draft animals, harnessed to sleighs or sleds known as pulks—when there was snow, that is. In summertime, the reindeer were pretty much free, although people might sometimes use them as pack animals. In winter, the reindeer offered the ideal means of transport, reliant on neither roads nor bridges. The whole plateau lay open to those able to use them.
Snow was also the reindeer’s element in another way. Beneath the snow, properly insulated and therefore not frozen regardless of how far below zero temperatures lay, the reindeer could dig down to their main winter food: reindeer lichen. They were, in fact, dependent on the snow and its unique insulating properties: if not for the snow, the reindeer lichen would have frozen and the reindeer would have starved—as can happen in winters where snow is scarce. Then a layer of ice forms over the lichen and the reindeer cannot reach it.
Frozen reindeer lichen also brought a TV series to a temporary halt. When the Norwegian state broadcaster, NRK, was about to launch a “slow TV” series following the spring migration of a family of flyttsamer and their reindeer herd, the reindeer didn’t want to leave. The reason was that the snow had first melted in a period of mild weather and then frozen again into ice. This made it difficult for the reindeer to find reindeer lichen and they responded by postponing their migration, staying where they were until the ice began to thaw again and the reindeer lichen became accessible. The leader does were the ones that decided when the migration should start, and the TV people just had to wait patiently.
For reindeer, snow is a gift from the gods, and that has also been true for the humans on the plateau. The snow has made it easy to travel, independently of roads, using either reindeer or skis. The Sami people were probably Norway’s first skiers, as Sami director Nils Gaup suggested in his film Pathfinder: the Sami can travel on skis, whereas the Tjudes, a marauding people, have to struggle through the snow on foot. Rock carvings of skiers dating back several thousands of years have been found in Alstadhaug and Alta—the images that inspired the distinctive icons of skiers used at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.
The Sami people’s skiing skills were also well known to Fridtjof Nansen, who took two Sami men with him when he skied across Greenland: Ole Nilsen Ravna and Samuel Balto. The same went for the Finnish-Swedish