lapin kulta

hei. 2 days ago, i reached the 4-month mark of being away from home on my travels.

it's kind of crazy how every time i've felt like i was on the desperate brink of not knowing what do/where i am going to stay/how am i going to get to this other place, somehow, a solution develops. this has opened doors and situations and meeting people to me that i never could have planned in a million years even if i'd had a giant stack of guidebooks and an unlimited budget. before i left home, i would always stress out so hard about things, big and small...i always felt like i was at the harsh mercy of some forces out of my control. since i've been on this trip, i realize that i don't worry as much, even though techincally, i should have more to worry about - like, where i am going to sleep the next evening? i guess just accepting that i don't have all the answers and that i'm willing to do what it takes to be safe and get stuff done has really changed that about me, and i'm thankful. also...

i'd like to take this opportunity to thank every single person i've met on this journey thus far - your kindness has changed my life. thanks as well to my loving family and dear friends whose positive vibes gives me energy to continue these lonely expeditions. thank you universe!

ok!

so, this weekend was the IJAHIS IDJA ("Nightless Nights") Indigenous Peoples Music Festival and Reindeer Conference at the Sami Education Institute here in Inari. it was a busy weekend - many of the the students i was hanging with are from the south of Finland, so there was a lot of last minute work to be done on portfolios and pieces before school ends in the beginning of June.

the photos in this entry are a bit scattered: at some points i was taking lots of photos, at sometimes i found myself too engaged in talking with people or listening or doing something...


it was a rainy weekend, unfortunately


spare parts


kaisa working on some buttons


carving bone is not easy


the hard materials (bone, birch, etc.) working room


bitch burl cups made by students


for drinking coffee or out of streams and rivers


bucket o bones


Kaisa documenting her work


Kaisa's pendant


Andrei


unfinished silver and citrine/burnt amethyst necklace by Andrei


a much needed break was taken when everyone realized it was Friday and the thumping bass coming from the music festival in the auditorium was too distracting. a group of us walked to the little fire pit by the river that i'd previously visited with Suvi for some drinks and snacks.


road to Lemmenjoki


it had been raining earlier


"bear" beer and blood sausage


the folks


the "rabbit rapids"


kaisa elisa andrei


at the school there was also an exhibition of clothing from the people of the Yakutia Republic in Russia. there were some visitors from there as well and there were photos and lectures telling about what's going on with them over there (none of which i could understand). the Yakuts are also reindeer herders.

one thing i really like about this school is the emphasis on keeping strong ties with other Northern cultures. they have many exchange programs with not only schools in Yakutia/Northern Russia but basically all countries within the Arctic Circle - for example, in the fall Kaisa will be doing an exchange with a school in Nunavut, Canada.


coat


Inari Sami lady checking out the coat


lovely







Yakuts ladies giving a lecuture about the clothing, traslated from Russian (?) to Finnish


there was a bit of drama onthe first day when the headmaster of the school decided to cancel a performance by the rapper Amoc, one of the most well known Sami musicians. from what i gather, he is a student at the school, and the day before the festival an old crime charge was being talked about in the papers and news for some reason. the young people at the fest were disappointed and someone tried to get a petition going, but from what i heard he had gone away to Ivalo anyway


getting ready to rock


yoik


fun times


fancy suits


Mari selling some jewlery she made. at first, the day had been in peril as she cut herself making salad and required a trip to Ivalo and three stitches


however, she returned in time to MC this fashion show and the day was saved


afterparty. the Sami guy in the Peruvian jacket on the right there spoke better Spanish than me, by the way


yerba mate outside mari's log cabin 4am


that's it for now. in other news, today i had the pleasure of acquiring my first (and probably only) pieces of Lapland silver. they are a ring and pendant custom made for me by Andrei and they are amazing. pictures soon!

heilini ikävöitsee

first things first:

i've just returned from Ivalo (40km south) where i spent one sweet hour in the best store of my life. it's name translates to something like "Shoe and Costume", but it's basically a giant deadstock department store of vintage Finnish clothing from the 50-80s, including an entire wall of shoes for all seasons, hats, and any other pieces of clothing one might think of. the first 30 seconds after i walked in, i remember thinking something like, " everything in my life [of shopping] so far, all those emotional-rollercoaster thriftstore excursions, the rare thrill of actually finding something perfect..........has all been leading up to this moment." the sweet old lady who owned the store smiled and welcomed me, i turned, took a breath, ready to dive in, visions of treasure dancing in my head, until...

... i looked at the price tags. um!!! no one wonder there was so much there....no normal human, especially not in that town of 600 people, could afford what this little old lady was asking for these, admittedly, mint condition vintage clothes. i have a feeling she might be one of these types i've encounted before who run seemingly shoddy bookstores/used-something stores. the minute you walk in you get this excited feeling, like "i know i am surrounded by wonderful, rare things, and all i have to do is look around and put them in a nice pile and pay (almost nothing) for them". but, the moment you are ready to ring up your pile of cool stuff, you realize that the asking price is so unreasonable that it seems the seller doesn't really want to sell it in the first place!

anyway, i caved and bought one dress for 25 euros ($33). it's unworn, the tags were still attached (made in Oulu) and it fits like a glove. also, it's getting warmer now and i'm sick of wearing the same 4 t-shirts/2 pairs of pants forever.

ps: dear dollar, please stop losing ground against the euro, thanks.





ok!

onto the photos from the past week here in Inari:


one of my hitchhike rides up North (see entry below). this is Jassi with his father after his dad made us lunch and before we looked at family pictures.


on highway 4 heading North


Mari, student at the Sami school



giving me the tour of where they prepare the various animal skins for leathermaking and such.


more animals in various states of preparation


Mari lives in a little cabin 2km outside of town


sitting by the fireplace





Kaisa bringing water from the well to wash the lunch dishes


4km walk


beautiful day


drinking straight from the river...you can do that here


Pielpajärvi


Wilderness


Church




ringing the bell!


Mari carving a stick to cook bread over the fire with. sauna suggestively smoking in the background


sauna!


lake near the sauna where one could splash. still quite frozen


sunset/sunrise? it was around 12 am


Kaisa being amazed by the loveliness of the forest. we heard/saw two trumpet swans courting upon a perfectly still lake


and a little red fox run screaming through the woods

other stuff...


met up with Suvi at the pub while waiting to go to dinner with Mari


another guest of Suvi's had just arrived and we were introduced: Lorenz from Germany. here he is singing a song with some Norweigan guys


the Norweigan guys


one exceptionally fair day, Lorenz, Suvi, Pessi and i went down to river for a walk after dinner


Suvi and her son, Pessi


we also made a fire and some tea


a cloudy end of the day


Great Finnish Music of the Week

i've been listening a lot to some new sounds courtesy of Aki, after he showed me this dvd of a performance by this guy and his string band in a gold prospecting camp a year or two ago by the Lemmijoki river. the album is by J. Karjalainen/Lännen-Jukka and it's called Amerikansuomalaisa Lauluja/Finnish-American Folk Songs. it's really bare-bones banjo picking and solo singing in Finnish by J. Karjalainen, performing the songs of his mentor Lännen-Jukka and it's amazing. from the liner notes:

Lännen-Jukka left for America as a young man in 1920. He started out working an assortment of jobs in New York. After that he worked on the railroads and did some mining in the southern mountains, in Virginia and North-Carolina. Most of the time he travelled on the “road of freedom”, i.e. he engaged in the demanding profession of the hobo. He hopped freight trains and rode them across the continent, walked through countless pairs of shoes on endless stretches of road, hoboed with his banjo under his arm and the rest of his belongings in a cloth sack. He went “all over the place”. But wherever he went, there was music, singing and playing. Lännen-Jukka committed a wealth of American styles from hillbilly to blues to his musician’s memory, learned to play the 5-string banjo and even had the ingenuity to combine it all with the old-time songs he knew from back in the old country. He came back to Finland in the early 1930s, just in time for the depression.

apparently, he also met and hung out with Charley Patton and Willie Brown, and there's a track on the album called "Minä, Vili ja Charlie (Me Willie And Charlie)"




well, i'm to bed. tomorrow is the beginning of three days of events here in Inari. the Reindeer Conference, of Sami herders from all over Sapmi (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia) will take place tomorrow at the school. Friday and Saturday is the Midnight Sun Sami Music Festival, also featuring artists from all over Sapmi, and fashion shows and such featuring the work of the handicraft students...should be a lot of action for this little village. ok, good "night"