Dagmara Wojtanowicz

Lapland- Sápmi

We are rushing with a wind speed on the frozen river. Snow is falling into my eyes, I close them. All I can see are vanishing white spots… I hide my face in a man’s hood who is behind a helm. A completely strange man, whom I met 3 minutes ago, whom I trusted and who is holding my life in his hands. I won-der, what would happen if I fell now. Would I survive? How many of my bones would be broken? I was so afraid… WE ARE SLOWING DOWN! I open my eyes and here I am in the middle of reindeers herd. Right in the centre. They are standing at my fingertips. Beautiful, mystique! All looking at us. I don’t believe what I’m see-ing, it’s such an enormous joy. He showes me with his hands – the running one belongs to his cousin, but that one is his. For me they are all the same. He explains, that he recognizes them by the ears. His fairytale is gone, when the other man takes out lasso and catches one youngster. He ties him. Animal is para-lyzed with fear, handful of black crap falls out of him involuntarily. His big black eyes looked into me – I pretend not to see his asking for help…. Maybe his stress is beyond level, may-be he didn’t care any more. The man looks at me, maybe He saw my vague face, and says “Are you one of those who think meat grows on trees?” Hold here – he says and points to reindeers antlers. I hold it for a minute, but then I start to pet the animal to calm it down a little… This little one isn’t going under the knife, he needs to be transported 8 miles from here. Reindeers are standing on a river, what means that under the snow there is no grass they could eat. This year’s winter is not too good. Snow is too compact and it is hard for animals

to get to food and therefore they are very skinny. The scooter again… I am starting to familiarize him, or maybe it just looks like this. This time we are going slower, we are looking for tracks (several dozen reindeers went far from the herd). The man shows me different tracks on the snow, they are completely invisible for me.He points with his finger, I stare but cannot see a thing. He says: “his is the fox and those tracks show that they were going that direc-tion yesterday.”We were driving back and forth, meeting dif-ferent man, and one of them attracted my at-tention in a special way. An older man, with such a beautiful, hypnotizing eyes. He is an artist, drowns paintings which are sold to no-body. He wanted me to make pictures of them so much, but it was not ment for us to meet again. I saw him killing a reindeer, disembow-eled him on the snow, took the skin off, gath-ered all blood, took off excrements form in-testines, and took empty intestines with him. Worse of all things was a sight of a embryo, which he took off from the inside and throw on the snow. It was such a small thing, in a size of a hand. At the end of a day I took the helm, and now not that strange man was depended on me My trip to this place started a long time ago, in my dreams. I love traveling, but dis-appointed with tourists reality, I dreamt of discovering something with my own senses! Something so real… And I made it! Feeling of joy and excitement of my own exploration of a piece of the world, which on the first place seemed so that attractive was so strong, and fulfilled every single cell of my body.

A strong culture in the modern world- my journey to lapland -

My story started with a cut finger and operation in a hospital in Tromso. This is where I met her. A beautiful women and so different from other people who were on the ward. I didn’t know then yet who that wom-an is and I didn’t realize that she will open the gate to this magic land.

The trip took two exceptional, but very different from each other, weeks. During first of them I lived at an strange family in Kau-tokeino. They accepted me as one of them. I felt like a member of the family. I realized, that I am a person they open from. They were talk-ing about their traditions, family stories, about everyday life here on the far North. We visit-ed together several other families, each and everyone hosted me very nice. Actually, in Kau-tokeino everyone is a very big family. Everyone knows everyone, and like in every family fights happen, but family holds tight together. Sami myth was crushed! The Samis don’t like the description “Lapp”.„Lapp” in Swedish means rag, patch. I saw a civilized world with a very strong culture. A culture, which was pressed, was supposed to be a part of a Norway, but finally survived. They have 8 seasons and 400 terms for snow. One shouldn’t ask about a number of reindeers – it is rude, but they will be happy to eat a dinner made with a reindeer meat prepared with one of a 100 delicious ways.

There was a major Church interference, which made a stigma on their culture. Joik singing was forbidden, as it was considered as connected to shamanism and came from the Satan himself. (Joik are improvised, high-ly spiritual songs, songs with no words, music

coming straight from the hart, describing joys and sadness of a man and delight over the na-ture. Lapland is not only reindeers and layvo (big family tent). Of course I met some peo-ple who remember the old times, when they used to live with their parents in layvo. Today it’s mainly purpose is smoking meat, or during summer trips with reindeers.

On the second week I lived in Alta, and during my stay there was “Sami fashion week”. I met a lot of artists, stylists and people who carry their culture deep in their hearts, but at the same time are open for new inspirations. They create amazing things with some deli-cate motifs of the culture. The motifs are not only in modern clothes, but also in jewelery inspired by the nature – tundra to be exact.

I was blown away to the far North to meet people who open their homes and hearts to strangers. To a place, where a neighbor comes unappointed for a cup of coffee, where cold and frosty is very common, but not in peoples’ hearts. Maybe it is just the climatic conditions that make them care for others. Today there is heating in every house, they have cars and smart phones with Internet connection, so it is rather mentality and strong culture that holds the society together. I wish all Samis to hold to their culture and their traditions because thanks to that they are so very special.

Wojtanowicz Dagmara