The world through my eyes

AN INVALUABLE ENCOUNTER WITH A SAMI

I was waiting to see the northern lights on my last night in Abisko, Sweden at 2 am. “You will not see it,” said a man who just arrived with a hostel guest, “it will be there around… 4-5 days,” while looking outside. It turned out that he was a Sami. “I know the signs,” he said.

The Sami people are considered as the indigenous people of the Arctic Circle living in the northern parts of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia, way before the Germanic tribe and the Vikings inhabited Sweden. They have their own costumes, flag, national day and national song, although they don’t have their own country. They have their own ‘recognized’ area though, known as Sápmi area.

A short talk revealed that the man is one of the reindeer herders, an occupation that only a person of Sami descent with a linkage to a reindeer herding family can do. The man, who was a proud full-blood Sami descendant, said that his job as a reindeer herder was the only option since he was the only son. His sisters could do whatever they want to be, but not him. He has to be the herder, since reindeer herding is a tough job and required strong men, something that even a big and strong man as himself had trouble with. Mining and industrialization in the north disturbs his activity of reindeer herding and that the forest and lands containing food for the herd are being destroyed. Also, wolves are threats to the reindeers, something that the herders have to constantly watch for.

He saw the northern lights many times, something that he was used to be afraid of as a child, especially when it was too bright. It was believed that the lights will absorb their spirit away, so he would then hide from it or cover his face from it. I didn’t see it myself unfortunately, but I got something more valuable instead. I had a conversation with a Sami, a person from a long generation that managed to survive for thousands of years throughout the cold harsh environment of the Arctic Circle.