Meet the Sámi family who have been herding reindeer for generations

What do you picture when you think of the northernmost regions of Norway? Sleepy fishing villages blanketed in a layer of ice and snow? Neon blue and green lights dancing in the sky like thick-cut ribbon? What about herds of reindeer, surviving in the cold, dressed in their tawny coats, with an Indigenous group of people herding and protecting them?

For the Sámi people – an Indigenous group scattered around northern Norway, Finland, Sweden, and parts of Russia; a region which you may know as Lapland (actually called Sápmi) – reindeer herding is a deep part of everyday culture and life, and the practice has existed with them for generations. The reindeer and Sámi co-exist in harmony, helping each other out all year long, through sun and snow. But, Sámi people have faced many hardships in the past, and their road to recognition and acceptance has been a long one.

As part of our Travel Project series, we had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with Johan Oskal, a Sámi reindeer herder, who shed some light on what reindeer herding is really like for him and his family, and what it means to be part of this Indigenous community.

Hi Johan! Can you start by telling us how long the Sámi people have been in Norway working with reindeer?

“It’s hard to document how long we Sámi people have been in the area, but we have always been part of the land. We have been here, in Norway, for a very very long time, and some of us, like myself, work with the reindeer, some Sámi people are fishermen, and others work in your more common trade jobs. There is no documentation, but reindeer herding has been in our culture for generations – it has been in my family for generations.”

“My father worked with the reindeer, my grandfather worked with the reindeer, and now I do. It’s something that I grew up with, it’s a passion of mine, and not every Sámi person does it, but it’s something I feel very lucky to be able to do. I feel very privileged to work with reindeer, nature, and now also the many people that come to visit.”

And for you, when did you decide that you were going to become a reindeer herder as well?

“For me I always grew up knowing that I would. My father was a reindeer herder and so I always grew up around this life, in the mountains in summer and autumn, and I helped my father with his work.”

“I remember when I was four, we were living in the lavvu (a Sámi mobile tent), and I was falling asleep, but my father came to wake me up in the middle of the night and he brought me out to come help, and I was feeling very proud. I brought my lasso with me, and he took me to the reindeer. And then my father told me to use my lasso and “if you catch the reindeer, you get the reindeer”, and I was so excited, I just thought this would be the time I got my first reindeer.”

“Of course, as young as I was, I didn’t catch any for a while, but finally I did. It was a white reindeer, and my father marked him for me, and in that moment I knew that this was something for me. So, I work with the reindeer today, and I always consider it a privilege to get to be part of this reindeer herding life that is so much bigger than me.”

Would you say that reindeer, and reindeer herding, holds a spiritual place in Sámi culture?

“Yes, I would say that. I think there is something spiritual to it, and it is a very important part of our culture. As a reindeer herder, you’re always learning something: you learn from the reindeer and you learn from nature itself. That’s our mentality, or for me anyway when I’m working with the reindeer, so it can be quite spiritual because you are growing with it.” 

You made the decision a few years ago to keep your reindeer in a fenced environment, could you tell us a little about that choice?

“Yes, well, it happened maybe 11 or 12 years ago now and I made that choice as a way of protecting the reindeer. So, between summer and winter we move the reindeer to different pastures, and they are free to roam and find food, etc. In the winter pasture, the reindeer tend to scatter a lot more – they spread out so they can find more food. But, when they are all so spread out like that, it’s easier for predators to find them, and we have lynx and wolverines in these areas.”

“One year when I was getting my reindeer from the winter pasture and we had just lost too many. So, I tried out this fenced area – the pasture is still very big and the reindeer have a lot of freedom, but it just stops them wandering too far, and it keeps them safe.”

“The good thing about the fenced environment is that it also makes it easy for travellers to visit. You know, the reindeer are all in one spot and travellers can see them and be part of that experience, and they can feed the reindeer and learn about them and what we do. So, the fence was the start of this tourism part of our business as well.”

A really beautiful part of Sámi culture is the clothes you wear, called Gátki, and the crafts, called Duodji. Could you tell us a little about these?

“Gátki is very special to us. They’re not only clothes, but they also indicate where you’re from. The specific designs and decorations tell you what areas you’re from, so it’s a very important part of the Sámi culture, but also to your personal Sámi identity.”

“And Duodji are our traditional handicrafts, and they have been part of Sámi culture for a very long time. It’s very important to us, and many items are part of it. For example, there is a belted-bag made of reindeer skin, or warm hats made with reindeer pelts. When sledding with reindeer, the harness they wear is also Duodji, and it’s made specially for each specific reindeer.”

“Gátki and Duodji are typically women’s work, and they make the clothes, the harnesses, the hats, etc. by hand, together. Duodji is really beautiful, because you make things that are pretty, but also very useful to our everyday lives.”

Do you find that younger generations are keeping within Sámi tradition, or moving away from it?

“That’s a broad question to answer and I would say it depends from place to place. But one thing is for sure: we have Sámi classes and Sámi schools, and through this the younger generations can learn who they are and where they come from, and they can be proud of being Sámi instead of hiding their Indigenous identity or language. And in return, they can talk about it with other people and educate them about who the Sámi are, what we do, etc. We are certainly in a better place as minorities than we maybe once were.”

Can you tell us about some of the most important elements of Sámi culture that you hope to pass on to your children?

“Oh, a lot of things! First of all to just be proud of who they are and where they come from. You wear different clothes, you speak a different language, but be proud.”

“I want to of course pass down our land and our reindeer, so that they can continue to work with the reindeer when they grow up and keep that aspect of tradition and our family alive. My father did that with me, and my grandfather with him, and I want to do the same with them. But, passing on the understanding that this isn’t just your project, though, is important. To divide the land into smaller and smaller projects between different people isn’t good, so we all share it and work together, and I hope they remember that.”

If you don’t mind, could you touch upon some of the struggles that Sámi people may have come up against in the past, or even still today?

“For a very long time, the Sámi people in Norway were not accepted. We lived under a political regime that believed that in Norway everybody should be Norwegian and that there could be no other cultures and no other languages. So, Sámi people suffered. There were areas in Norway where Sámi people had to change their names to be able to buy land, and when my grandmother went to school she was not allowed to speak Sámi, and for a very long time the younger Sámi generations were not taught the language.”

“All of this destroyed the Sámi identity, you know, it was like brainwashing to believe that being Sámi was wrong and something to be ashamed of. Being Norwegian was a good thing, being Sámi was not.” 

“Luckily the political state has gotten better, and Sámi people are recognized and accepted. We have our own Sámi schools and Sámi classes, the language is growing again and spreading, but the damage has been done. There were 30 Sámi languages, but now there are only 10.” 

“Another issue we face is an issue with the land.”

“Many Indigenous peoples have a close connection to the land, and when we work with reindeer, this strengthens our connection to the land. We work together and protect each other. But, more and more Norwegian land is being taken to, you know, build industries or windmills or skiing tracks, etc. So, in many ways we could say the free land, for us and the reindeer, is being destroyed. We are worried that there will not be a place for us anymore.”

How important is your relationship with nature? Or, how important is it for everyone to have a relationship with nature, do you think?

“Very. You know, we get a lot of visitors who come from the city, cities in Norway or from other places in the world, and they come here specifically to see the reindeer and also the Northern Lights and the mountains and the snow and the trees. These visitors tell me that they don’t have this nature in the city, so they come here to get it back.”

“For myself, working with the reindeer and the nature around me is a meditative experience and it’s really something that I need. I need to have time on my own, and time to slow the pace. The city is great, but it can be stressful and maybe it makes you feel like you should be doing this and that all the time, but nature has the opposite effect.” 

“So, for us people, Sámi and everyone else, I think it’s a necessary thing for us to have these beautiful places where we can go and be a bit alone and give in to that good feeling nature can bring you.”

How often do different Sámi communities meet and what kind of experiences do you share together?

“It’s a lot of weddings! At Sámi weddings you meet a lot of Sámi people, and our weddings can have anywhere between 300 or 3000 guests. You get to meet other Sámi people, as well as your relatives and friends or acquaintances you haven’t had the chance to see for a while. We also have a lot of festivals where people come together as a community.”

“If you are a reindeer herder like me, then you will meet a lot of reindeer herders, and you will talk about the reindeer and the winter and the newborn calves – there is a lot of talk about nature and animals!”

Are there any common misconceptions that people may have about Sámi people that you wanted to touch on?

“Mostly when people meet us and visit us they come to understand just how much work taking care of reindeer is. They may think we don’t do much, or that it’s easy, but really there is a lot of work, and more importantly there is a lot of responsibility, you know? We’re responsible for the animals and we have to take into account what they need and thinking what’s best for them.”

“It can stretch to us being Sámi as well, just that fact. Still in Norway sometimes we are not understood. Sometimes we speak Sámi with each other and people will complain telling us to ‘speak Norwegian, we are in Norway,’. Like many other minority groups we face the same issues, so it’s important for people to listen to us and understand who we are.”

If you want to meet the Norwegian reindeer and watch as they graze in the snow, protected by the Sámi people and the colourful pelts, then why not travel with Contiki on our Norway Fjords and Northern Lights trip?