REINDEER BLOG

I'm blogging our trip to Norway!  Tune in for updates...

Why are we going to a small town in northern Norway (several hundred miles above the arctic circle) for spring break, you might ask, instead of the Bahamas or somewhere considerably warmer (or at least not extremely cold)? We are going for the 110th anniversary of the Manitoba expedition.  The Manitoba was a ship that took about 150 Sámi reindeer herders (and their families) to Alaska (and about 500 reindeer, of which around 200 survived the trip) to teach the Inuit reindeer husbandry.  You can read more about the Sámi and the Manitoba expedition at the websites I've listed at the end of the page. My great-grandparents were on this ship, and so our family and some other descendents of Sámi in America came to Kautokeino, Norway for the anniversary celebration.

March 19, 2008  3:34 AM (NYC time), 8:34 AM (Copenhagen time)

We just arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark. Great coffee. We're flying on to Oslo soon and then Alta, which is all the way at the northern tip of Norway. Here's a picture of a 7-eleven in the Copenhagen airport!

 

March 21, 2008 4:26 PM (NYC time), 9:26 PM (Norway time)

We arrived in Alta in the afternoon on the 19th and its been non-stop fun since then.  Many of our cousins met us at the small airport in Alta, and then they took us to have coffee at our cousin Vibeke Elvenes' house in Alta.  Our cousins the Monsens were also there, and Grete (left, below) made us some family trees and in this picture you can see her showing one of these family trees to my parents.  She made one for my great-grandfather, Per Nilsen Bals, and one for my great-grandmother, Inger Anna Olsdatter Baehr - going back to the 1500s!

After coffee, our cousin Olav Mathis Eira (center, above) drove us to Kautokeino. Here are a few pictures from the drive:

We arrived in Kautokeino in the evening, and the next morning (March 20) we hopped around town seeing the sights. Here is a photo of the tourist center (you can see the traditional Sámi costumes - called "gákti" in the window):

Here is the Kautokeino Kirke - the church:

This is the official Sámi flag.  The blue part of the circle represents the moon and the red part of the circle represents the sun.

Here I am in a gákti borrowed from Ellen Inga Haetta and her daughters (Ellen Inga is the Director of the Norwegian Reindeer Husbandry Administration):

Here we are at the reindeer taxi stand.  These are older reindeer that can't move with the herd anymore.

Here I am with my grandmother's first cousin Sussanne Andersen. She's 87:

Today, March 21st, was the official celebration. Here are our cousins Olav Mathis Eira, his mother Kristine Bongo Eira, and his wife Kristina:

Here is Ellen Inga at the celebration:

Here we are with several of our cousins at the celebration:

Here we are with one of our cousins (the dude with the cool hat) and our cousin Mimi Bahl De Leon from Washington state - we had to come all the way to Norway to finally meet her!

Here's my dad with his own cool hat - which was made especially for him by Sara Baer Buljo, one of our cousins.

March 26, 2008 11:07 AM (NYC time)

We got back to the states late last night, and I'm heading home to New York from DC this afternoon.  It's time to put up the rest of our pictures!  This is the really good stuff including the reindeer race and our visit to a reindeer herd!

Here are some of the reindeer that ran in the race.  The race is held once a year around Easter. These reindeer are castrated males.  They are very tame and so we could get up pretty close to them!

Here is the reindeer that ran the cerimonial first run:

Here is the mayor of Kautokeino who raced using the reindeer above with the traditional wooden skis.

Go speedracer go!

Here I am with my cousins Mimi and Marit Buljo before going to the Sami Grand Prix:

Here is the winner of the Sami Grand Prix joik contest, joiking his girlfriend:

Here's another picture from the Sami Grand Prix:

Here is the Kautokeino church after Easter service:

This was my first time ever driving a snowmobile.  We drove about 40km round trip on snowmobiles to see our cousin Per Baer's reindeer herd.

Here we are with the herd!

And here's Mimi with the herd:

And here's Per Baer himself:

Here is Ellen Inga on her cellphone and my dad in the background. My mom loves this picture because we're in the middle of the tundra and she's on a cellphone.

Well, thanks for reading my reindeer blog!  I hope we can visit Kautokeino again soon, it was so wonderful. I have many more pictures - if you send me an email at maryeblair@gmail.com I can send you more. If you'd like to read more about Sámi and reindeer herding you can find some information at the links below...

Links to Sámi and reindeer herding websites:

Baiki magazine - information on the Manitoba expedition
Ealat project
Reindeer Portal
Reindeer Blog (the REAL one)

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