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Lars is dressed the part in traditional turned-up
moccasins, sealskin jodhpurs and a red-striped tunic,
and when he yodels toward the forest, his reindeer come
running, cowbells clanging.
Like most Sámi, Lars — one of the few remaining
speakers of the native Sámi language — once herded
thousands but downsized to a scant 450 a decade ago
when they began suffering the effects of excessive logging.
Reforestation has restored much of the lost habitat, but
the aqua-blue lichen reindeer rely on prefers the moisture
of old-growth woods. Lars bobs his head to mime the
difficulty his livestock face trying to feed through ice
cover, when the snow melts mid-season then refreezes.
This unhappy consequence of climate change is, he says,
another problem he’s watched snowball.
On thin ice
The Sámi have had to get creative to survive. Another
herder, Tine Eriksson, collects armfuls of hay each day, piles
it onto a sled pulled behind an ancient snowmobile and
distributes it to her herd personally. The following morning,
Jonas and I track her down to a field by an abandoned
logger’s hut. Her husband has had to abandon his chores to
rescue a reindeer from a hungry lynx (a “cat problem”, as she
calls it), so their daughter, Elle, a forestry student at the local
university, has come to help. “She’s learning to infiltrate the
industry,” says Jonas winking. Tine laughs, then invites me
to hop on the snowmobile behind her.
Twenty-first-century reindeer are born into a cursed
territory, she says as we putter into the woods. “Salted
motorways lure the animals into the open. And if lynx
don’t get them, cars will,” she says. Tine explains her
“village” — by which she means a swathe of Sámi territory,
around 100 miles wide — loses 100 a year to traffic. And
while the young, snow-capped forest replanted by logging
companies is certainly beautiful — tall, dignified, orderly
— she says a “new plantation is not really forest, it’s like
growing palm trees here; so foreign”.
Lately, local Sámi have bonded with outback guides
like Jonas over the common goal of conserving Lapland’s
snow-melt rivers and ancient forests. Together, they
make a formidable faction against Big Forestry and
the steelmakers that install windmills that impede the
reindeer as they head along age-old migratory routes.
“Our northern industries are some of the world’s
greenest,” Jonas says. “But they come here thinking it’s a
land of nothing, when for us it’s the land of everything.”
Jonas doesn’t have to sell me on what there is to enjoy
in this supposed emptiness. Arriving in the village of
Mårdudden, where he’s converted the general store into
a homely inn called The Outpost, we wave at a neighbour
on a kick sledge pulled by his husky. Noting my interest,
Jonas offers to squeeze a “husky run” into my itinerary,
alongside the hot air ballooning I’ve already signed up for.
All these activities offered by The Outpost take advantage
of the frozen lake and snow-laden woods behind the inn.
All conclude with Swedish tea: waffles splashed with cream
and cloudberry jam, taken in an armchair by the fire.
When it’s finally comes time to leave, Jonas drives
me south to Luleå. Exiting the charming main street,
Jonas takes an unexpected turn down a peninsula on the
Bothnian Bay. At the frozen ferry dock, he... keeps driving,
out onto the frozen water. It all feels rather Thelma &
Louise. This is the route the reindeer take in winter, from
the inland Sámi villages toward richer food sources, Jonas
explains, although the herds find the passage increasingly
perilous as the earth warms. For us, today, the transition
from tarmac to ice is seamless.
Luleå’s ice road leads to a pine-thick archipelago that
you’d need a boat to reach in summer. The crossing
is blissfully luminous and — after the sun makes its
vermilion descent — as dark as the hinterland. Gliding in
this strange stratosphere, I keep an eye on the horizon. The
Northern Lights are bound to flick on soon. I can already
feel the charge.
How to do it: Original Travel has two nights at Aurora Safari
Camp and one at Treehotel as part of its Arctic Adrenaline in
Swedish Lapland itinerary, from £3,59 0 per person. Includes
flights, transfers and some excursions. originaltravel.co.uk
aurorasafaricamp.com visitsweden.com