February 4th: Jokkmokk

“… After a calm weekend, the festivities begin. Between the busy days and fun nights, the 14 strangers have started to open up to each other, and perhaps start to form some friendships. But with the Market comes some unique sights, sounds, and tastes; will they be able to stomach it? …”



Hej Blog Buddies,

Sorry this post has been delayed; between the market and other events I’ve been pretty busy. I did also add a video to the reindeer wrestling (two entries below?). When you watch it, you’ll undoubtedly notice that it’s obviously not me in the video, but I just wanted to give you an idea of what it was like. (The one in the video looks relatively tame compared to some of them..) Enjoy!




Sunday, February 1st:

Today was probably the most beautiful day we’ve had in Jokkmokk so far. It was a pure blue sky, not a cloud in sight. A few people got up early to go to church again, but there was no reason for me to attend a second time. Instead slightly after lunch, Megan, Chelsea, and myself went for a little hike/walk near the lake. Although, this time we didn’t follow the path that runs parallel to the shore, but rather, we followed a large, groomed ski trail that went up some good sized hills. We followed these paths for perhaps, five kilometers. It was incredible. Every turn of the track led us somewhere even more gorgeous than the last. We arrived at what we thought was the pinnacle of trail, which overlooked a huge expanse of trees and hills, so we stopped there and got some good photos. Though we were on a ski trail (frequented by Roland, who recently bought cross country skis), I felt completely isolated from everything, (besides the path) from any signs of civilization. It reminded me a lot of being in Canada, in the sense that I felt completely cut off from the material world, only existing in the natural world.




I am glad that I went with others for first time, but it would be fun to walk some of these trails alone. There is really a sense of calm and peace that I fear might be lacking over the course of the next week.


Though it was sunny, it was quite cold out; walking really helped us to stay quite warm. I wish I could say the same for the remainder of the evening. At 5:00pm, they had the Sami Market equivalent of the Olympic opening ceremony. At this ceremony, which formally began the Historic Market, a group of kids did a choreographed routine with torches.


[I thought the choice of music for the performance couldn’t have been more perfect - - they used songs from the soundtrack to the trilogy The Lord of the Rings. This combined with the outfits that some of the Sami men and women were wearing made me feel like I was back in the middle ages. Please forgive my cultural insensitivity for a moment, but the people reminded my of the Minnesota Vikings mascot, Ragnar, without the horned hat. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Google “Vikings Ragnar” to get a good idea.) The pictures that I’ll post will hopefully illustrate what I mean.]

After the performance, everyone (maybe around 200 people) received a torch for the walk to the ice church.
[As we walked the two kilometers to the site, all with torches in hand, someone pointed out that what we were doing looked like a familiar scene from Beauty and the Beast, in which we were all going to “Kill the Beast!”]



When we arrived at the ice church, (not an enclosed structure, but rather, three chest-height walls with a large fourth wall bearing a Christian cross) which stands on the site of the first Christian church built in Jokkmokk in the 1600’s, a short, 25 minute service was held in a combination of Sami and 17th century Swedish. The service was made miserable by the fact that it was blistering cold by 6:00pm. Although, I will concede that it was really interesting to see and hear how a service was held over 400 years ago. Another unique aspect, was the old Swedish being spoken, it was very challenging to pick out familiar words and phrases, but still quite interesting.

After returning back to our dorm, and allowing ourselves to thaw for a while, a few of us went out to eat and a local restaurant. I think all four of us had the Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes. We had all been craving that, so we specifically chose the restaurant for that reason.




For some reason, I was just exhausted and ended up going to bed before 10pm (I don’t remember the last time I did that).


[I suppose I should explain this market a little bit more. Every year, for the past 404 years, the Sami people have held a weeklong market in Jokkmokk, Sweden. This market served as the big event from the year. Historically, they would have weddings and christenings during this time. It was a time when they could trade all of their handicrafts with each other, as well as a time when they could celebrate their culture together. The Sami people live across the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the northwest parts of Russia. This event attracts, and historically has attracted Sami people from across all borders. Unlike the Native Americans, the Sami have a peaceful history amongst the various tribes. More recently (in the last 75 years) this event has drawn non-Sami people to its festivities. When the week begins, they have several days of a Historical Market, with around 40 booths, set up the way it would have been 400 years ago; this attracts a significant amount of people to the area. During this time, they also have lectures on various topics, cultural activities, such as folk singing, folk dancing, arts and crafts, etc. Midway through the week, the modern/contemporary market begins; this is the part of the week that attracts 30,000+ people. I won’t be able to give a good description of what goes on during this part of the week, until it transpires.]




Monday, February 2nd:

Even though the Sami Market began yesterday, the city of Jokkmokk is holding the second annual conference on global climate change, called: Leadership in the Age of Uncertainty. I had an interest in attending some of the lectures, so along with a few others, we signed up to attend. Roland encouraged our attendance; the number of group members was artificially high at the first lecture, after hearing a rumor that the Prince of Sweden (Carl Philip) would be in attendance. This conference brought in experts with various backgrounds; the lecturers were from University of Stockholm, Oxford, somewhere in Greenland, Austria, as well as other places in Sweden. There were about 100 or so attendees from Canada, Iceland, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria, U.S., and Russia. Given the disproportionate impact that the U.S. has on the environment, the country took the brunt of a few (deserved) jabs. [Although, you wouldn’t believe how many non-Americans are thankful for Obama, especially the people we’ve met at this conference. One of the lecturers called Bush “The Darth Vader of the Environment.” Ever since being in Umeå, we’ve been getting “congratulations” on our new President, as well as questions about how excited we must be to have a new president - - Which of course, we all are. : ) right?]

We were all very excited for the arrival of the market. Monday was a rather low-key day for the market. We went to the Historical market to look at the various booths. All of the people were dressed in traditional animal fur clothing or other traditional Sami clothing. The booths were selling various handicrafts, such as hand carved bowls, spoons, butter knives, regular knives, traditional Sami food (dried/smoked reindeer, honey, various types of fish, preserves, etc.), balms, handmade clothing, slippers, socks, and so on. Some of the prices were pretty expensive, but good deals were there.




In the evening, a few of us went to “Sami dance games,” which was so much fun! It was circle dancing. All of the singing was in Swedish, accompanied by two people playing the violin/fiddle. Some of the games required that you be quite friendly with your neighbor. In one of the games, the person who didn’t have a partner at the end of the song was required to forfeit something to continue playing (a change purse, scarf, hat, etc.); to get the item back the person had to either dance, sing, or perform some talent for the group of about 50 people. [Luckily, I always had a partner; otherwise I don’t know what I would have done!]

After the dance games, quite a few people from the group went to Café Gasskass. The lecturer from Oxford was there, and ended up sitting at our table for about an hour. I ended up talking with this woman from the Yukon, who lives, works, and studies in Oslo. We spent quite a bit of time talking about her experience working for the Embassy in Norway.


Tuesday, February 3rd:

Once again I attended the conference on climate change. One of the lectures was pretty interesting, although done in a less than interesting way. It was a man who wrote a book called “Snö” (the Swedish word for “snow”). His talk was about the different words that the Sami have for the word “snow” (over 2,000). His talk consisted of pictures of winter landscapes, him telling us the Sami word for that “type” of snow, and then describing the snow. We heard probably, 200 different words, to describe a particular snow. My favorite one (I don’t remember the word) was described as the kind of snow that goes about half an inch below the back right knee joint of a reindeer.



After the morning lectures, I went back to the historical market, walked around and talked to some of the people at the different booths. You wouldn’t believe how many people are so surprised that we’re here all the way from Minnesota, and even more surprised that we can speak Swedish. Everyone has been very patient (with me, at least) with language. Almost all of the Sami that I’ve met speak nearly perfect English, so it would be easy to do that, but its more fun trying to use Swedish with them.

At the historical market there are a bunch of activities to do. One of them is a horse drawn sleigh ride. The horses are extremely large, and significantly hairier than any horse I’ve ever seen before. I got a picture of two of them, but there were a few others that looked bigger than a Clydesdale even.

At the local Sami museum they have different movies (pertaining to Sami/indigenous life and culture) playing. We went to one called “Spirits for Sale,” which was about a Swedish woman who received an Eagle feather from a Native American, but felt that she shouldn’t have such a sacred object. The film showed her quest to the U.S. to return the feather to someone who should have it. An underlying theme was indigenous people selling their culture or religion for money, and the debate that surrounds that.



Like the prior evening they had activities for people to attend. Tonight it was singing, rather than dancing. A few of us went to the event. Though the tunes were not difficult to keep, there was nothing to look at that had the lyrics on it. The two women leading the songs were trying to teach everyone; but it was all done in Swedish, and very difficult to understand. If we could have had the lyrics, I think I would have gotten more from this, but it was still fun nonetheless to hear the traditional songs.


I will try to get back on schedule with these blog posts, because I know how excited you are for each addition. : )

Hej hej,

Andrew