Kiruna Saami museum

There are very good cultural museums in Jokkmokk and Gallivare, but I was unaware of a Saami museum in Kiruna until I visited Kiruna for a day with Adrian last week.  The museum is away from the city centre and is called Samegarden and I promised that I would promote the museum here for anyone visiting Kiruna.  You can learn much about the Saami traditions and clothing

the different designs of clothes for each Saami community

Here is an old Saami man in his winter clothing made from Reindeer skins

This man is depicted using a traditional frame drum

I was pulling a modern pulk to the cabin but here is the traditional one pulled by Reindeer

A view inside a traditional Saami dwelling (so many people lived in such a small space)

and of course there are many examples of traditional crafts such as knives and carvings but also hunting items such as these rolled Birch bark floats for fishing nets

and these bark pouches with a stone inside to weight the nets at the bottom

It costs 20 SEK to visit and is well worth the price and there is information available in English about the displays.

Autumn in Lapland 27th – 29th September 2008

Snowing first thing this morning, but then changed to rain. The cloud cleared mid afternoon and then it was clear and sunny.

Cleaned the cabin this morning and put the boat back into the boat shed.

Using some off-cuts of wood I made a simple frame for a hacksaw

which I wanted to cut off some parts of the reindeer antler to take home.

This afternoon I went fishing with my friend Anki who wanted to show me the best places to fish. Unfortunately neither of us had a bite.

As it was such a lovely clear night I decided to test my camera for photographing the stars. In England you can use the Pole Star or North Star to help you navigate at night as when you walk towards it you are travelling true north, but here the Pole Star if directly above and to photograph it I had to lay the camera down on its back.

If you look at the bottom of the above picture you can see the saucepan shaped “Big Dipper” and if you take a line from the two stars at the right hand end (about six timed the distance between those two stars) you come to the Pole Star (it’s the brightest star on the right of the picture).

On the horizon, to the north I noticed a pale glow in the sky and as I watched it gradually became brighter and it was clear that it was the start of a display of the Northern Lights. It certainly wasn’t the best display I have seen, but was still a nice farewell on my last night at the cabin.

28th September

This morning I boarded the cabin windows and closed it up ready for winter.

I spent the next two days living with Ingvar and Anki learning more about life in Lapland, their family history and growing up following the family Reindeer herd in all weathers and living off the land. On Monday we visited Kiruna

and on Tuesday morning I left to return to England.