A date with bondage and animal furs...

I'm missing my hubby who went back to the US yesterday - but luckily I have one of the best overnight dates we've had fresh in my mind...  Friday night... laying on top of a reindeer fur... a branch of leaves to whip ourselves with... a fire... a rope... only sleeping a couple of hours because we were busy - - - helping the Laplanders mark their reindeer calves!  (What were you thinking?)   ;)

We had the privilege to be invited up to the Sami people (the indigenous people of Scandinavia) who still live off their reindeer herds.  Our friend, Anders, has been helping this Sami village for many years and it is thanks to him that we got to take part in this extraordinary event.

Swatting ourselves with branches to fight off mosquitos

Beautiful views while hiking up the mountain

Danny helping Anders

July 13th and I got to step in some snow...

11pm - walking back to camp

Anders' old traditional Sami hut

Midnight bedtime in our tent

2 am wake-up call.  Reapplying mosquito stick...

Sami taking off to gather the reindeer at about 3 am

4-wheelers and dirt bikes herding the reindeer into the corral

Every reindeer that belongs to a Sami village needs to be marked.  They mark the reindeer with a cut on the ear for which village it belongs to, then for which specific family it belongs to and finally for which person in the family it belongs to.  In the spring, when the new calves have arrived the Sami gather all the thousands of reindeer from the mountains where they have been roaming free over the winter.  This is done with a helicopter, 4-wheelers and dirt bikes.  They then divide them up into smaller groups of a few hundred and bring them in to a corral where they study the cuts on the mother's ears and then capture the calf with a lasso and mark it with the same markings.

I was absolutely amazed that these people could figure out not only who the calf belonged to, but also what specific marking the mother had!  To me, as a first timer, it was complete chaos with hundreds of reindeer running around like crazy.  The Sami, however, had it all under control.



Danny helping Bengt...

This week or so that they spend up in the mountains, marking their reindeer is a total family affair and the young kids are right there in the middle of the corral with their own lasso, learning the trait.

I love how the girls were still so girly, with their cute hair-do's, designer glasses and earrings while they were lassoing and cutting ears like the best of them!  Maybe it's just me noticing this, having been in the US for so long where this would be such a typical man's job.  Because here, in this Sami village, there's not even a reflection on whether an animal was caught by a man or a woman.  I still can't help admiring the girls a little extra... :)

I want to thank Anders so much for letting us come along on this unforgettable trip as well as all the people in the Sami village for dealing with us beginners.

On the way home I said to Danny "Now, I would just like to see a moose to top this trip off..."  Not even 5 minutes later...

Glad I had my camera ready in my lap! :)