An uncertain future…
Temperature minus 8º and dropping, wet weather in store although a beautiful day and less wind. Yesterday was a hard day - 55 kms from Lyngen Fjord to Rostujärvi Lake. The weather forecast was bad, and Tom Frode considered returning, but once we’d climbed and sweated into the fields, there was no going back, too much time wasting. The strong vicious north-easterly wind turned the Vidda into a raging sea. The dogs carried on bravely, their speed much reduced, their bodies caked with wind driven snow turning to ice, our faces were not much better.
We got into the lake fishing camp after 9pm having put the dogs out and fed them. At 10pm Olaf Idivuorna came in to see us. Olaf is a Reindeer Herder, who also runs this fishing camp until the spring when he returns to his herd. His winter pastures for the reindeer are in Sweden, and his summer ones in Norway. There’s competition from Norwegian herders so there is trouble and strife, of course. It’s not easy making a living as a herder, you have to love it. Olaf’s wife works in a shop, and he takes this job at the Sámi fishing camp when he can leave the herd to free range. “If you live from herding only, you have 700-800 reindeer minimum,” he says, “and the kids, they help me now and again on their bikes riding herd, particularly in the spring calving time when they have to protect against predators, but I don’t know for the future,” he told me with some sadness.
April 3rd, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Adam, dear friend: thanks to Cristina Monte who told us about Finmark 2007 I read the team’s post every day. A great chance to learn and to know what’s happening there just now. I thank the team for this. Thanks also for the wonderful photographs. God bless all you. With my best wishes. Victoria.