Spring Migration

Somehow it worked out. The timing was perfect, and the herders unbelievably welcoming. It was refreshing to speak with encouraging people, in English, about their lives today, how things have changed since scooters and cell phones arrived (life is easier and better for herders because they can connect with other people, but they understand the deer less), and what they think of the future ("there is no future for reindeer herding" due to encroachment by infrastructure, summer cabins, etc. Indeed, here, more often than anywhere else I have been this year, I have seen the physical footprint of man on the land.) In the week I was in Norway, I spent about 8 hours NOT on the tundra/mountain/land.

The plane from Copenhagen was late, so I sprinted through the Oslo airport, slipping through the door to the next plane just as it closed. When we reached Alta, I hopped onto the day's bus, arriving to Hemmogieddi (a group of houses north of Kautokeino) around 10 p.m. The father of the family, Anders Isak, came outside to hush the dogs and waved me in. Welcome. Eat. Pack. We are going. We have been waiting for you. And thus we began their spring migration, in which they bring the male and non-pregnant female reindeer to their summer pasture in the mountains of the coast, where it will be cooler than inland. They had already brought the yearlings to the coast by truck, as they are too weak to make the trek through the snowy mountains on their own. The pregnant females will give birth in the highlands near Hemmogieddi, and in snowless June the herders will bring the calves and mothers to the coast using ATVs.

In Russia I was able to see the very start of the spring migration, in which herders slowly move their homes 300 km north over many months. Here, with scooters and a portable tent, it took only one week, in which I was lucky to participate. I believe it was around 150 km, although I could be wrong. We had little sense of time, moving for 3-24 hours when the reindeer could best do so themselves, which was mostly at night, when the temperatures dipped below freezing and hardened the snow. When the herd was tired or the weather foul, we waited and slept for 1-18 hours, either lying directly on the wet ground in patches blown bare of snow, in the lavvu (Saami tent, equivalent of a Russian chum or a teepee), or in two huts along the way. The sun was not up all the time, but it was always light. In fact, sometimes night was lighter than day, as it was misty and wet for much of the week. Since my clothing was inappropriate for the local conditions (as usual) and I am not as hardened as the locals, it was very cold. Colder than anytime this winter, when the temperatures were MUCH lower. I mostly rode on a sled behind a scooter, hiding below a tarp to avoid the spray of slush and ice kicked back by the tread, which did not help me stay warm!

At a few lakes we fished, catching small but delicious land-locked Arctic char. John Ante's scooter was broken, so he joined us partway with more firewood and gasoline. And his uncle Nils skijored up from the coast to meet us also for the last day, when we descended from the mountains to the coast. This was the most spectacular of them all, and the most tense, as they had to bring the reindeer down the mountain and through the town of Langfjordbotn, around 70 deg. N. The snow was too soft for the alternate route up and along the top of "Little Russian Mountain," so named because locals claim it is the site of the final events in the legend that inspired Pathfinder, the most terrifying movie I saw as a child.

What took 8 or 9 men in Nenets AO required only two, driving around on their scooters and throwing lassos at a reindeer with a bell, which they tied to the scooter to lead the other reindeer, with two scooters following behind to keep the deer moving forward. In this way, at 4 in the morning, we descended slowly to and through the sparse birch forest, down a clearing under a power line, and across a road. The reindeer rushed to the sea to drink its sweet sweet salt, their winter diet of lichen providing little of this essential mineral. By foot, car, and scooter (on the road), we then shooed them along the road and beach for a few kilometers past rivers, shorefront houses, and farms. Around 8 am, Uncle Nils took me to the airport so I could go to Germany! The others finished the last 20 km of the migration (to a valley in the inner part of the summer peninsula) the evening I spent in Frankfurt. On 5/21 I returned to North America for the first time since last May. To moist, green, and very tree-filled Vancouver for a day. Now I'm in oil city Edmonton, Alberta, which feels a bit like the US/Midwest. Trucks, suburban sprawl, etc. Tomorrow I will head north for the last section of this incredible year. To Kugluktuk, Nunavut. I plan to return south to America's north- my lovely home in Minnesota, in mid-June. I'd love to see you then!