Sweden - The great migration

Each year, at the very first signs of spring, reindeers start becoming agitated in the snowclad forests of the Sapmi country. Time for migration is about to begin. Let's go to the west and its rich grassy summer pastures...

Patches of ice, as glossy as black marble, are recovering the used rocks of the Sapmi country. A north wind, cold and cutting as a blade, makes the hills smoky and chisels the snow in lots of short and broken waves....
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Sweden - The great migration

Each year, at the very first signs of spring, reindeers start becoming agitated in the snowclad forests of the Sapmi country. Time for migration is about to begin. Let's go to the west and its rich grassy summer pastures...

Patches of ice, as glossy as black marble, are recovering the used rocks of the Sapmi country. A north wind, cold and cutting as a blade, makes the hills smoky and chisels the snow in lots of short and broken waves. Although the hoar frost fringe that borders his face, Lennart Pittja is exulting. "Here it is, the migration has started !" Downstairs, hundreds of antlers are going out from the forest and are moving as one man into the desolated taïga. A moving stream of reindeers is coming forward in the snow as a simmering wave. "When the herd has decided to leave his winter forests to join back the tablelands of the mountains, nothing can hold them back" says Lennart. Even though today, most of these reindeers are half-domesticated, they have always kept the migratory instinct of their wild ancestors.
In these very firts days of April, signs of spring start becoming obvious. For two days already, the wind had been blowing from the west, a fresh and lightly iodized wind, coming from the Norwegian sea; the snow was getting more and more heavy and Lennart was looking for the first signs of agitation of the reindeers.
The Sami population of Sweden is divided in about fifty communities whose pastures form long stripes of earth streching from east to west. The one of Unna Cearus, located close to Gallivare, at the extreme north of the country, counts up around forty families. For winter, the community regroups its herds in the forests close to the mining city. During this period of night and intense cold, reindeers mostly feed themselves with lichens hidden under the snow and with "slahppo", a kind of black filamentous lichen growing on the trunks of pine or birch trees of the old forests.

Beginning of the great migration is lived as a deliverance by the reindeers but also by the Sami. Promise of plenty of food and fresh air in summer for the animals, rapture of gigantic spaces and return to nomadic life for men. For some fifteen days, herds will go forward to the west and the snowcovered mountains of the national park of Sarek and Stora Sjöfallet, more than 120 miles far from Gallivare. Once, Sami used to follow their herds on ski with sledges pulled by harness reindeers. Nowadays, snowmobile has become the indispensable tool. But the Sami always take a paire of skis on their saddles. In case the machine would get stuck or if the snow became too deep...
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