Of course it is often that of a rise in verbalRed orange blue emerald green overseasThe subject will soon be on the agenda of the twentysevenWatches and accessories would stand betterFor ten years all the great choices were consensual despite appearancesSegmenting by income is no longer the panaceaThis famous technological frontier new go westThe Côte d'Azur and IledeFrance are first lineIt is a well any problem today of Lufthansa stockAnd the principles it counts in politicsA euphoric discharge one breath fire glazed in the lungs, a pale azure skies and an ocean of snow studded Sun dust. A child dream plunge into the postcard Christmas embedded sequins, jumping on a sled, exclude the four corners of the image to infinity and disappear under the white mantle. This dream is available to three and a half hours from Paris, by air, where there shines a star: the Finnish Lapland. This star is not necessarily explored at the speed of light on a snowmobile. This is a new Sami concept: can stroll 20 C, take the time to live, even when the Sun is dying. Discover a land, but also a people, a culture.
The aircraft landed in Ivalo, in the extreme northwest of the Finland, well above the Polar circle, not far from the Russian border. Is the airport of glass or ice Was it barely left behind itself seems to have melted in the cold Sun in the afternoon, as scanned by the forest trails. Just a judgment in a ministation of skiing for a cold large equipment (combination of astronaut, mitts, boots filled), and the bus glides towards the hotel Kakslauttanen a kind of "resort" snow, typical of these regions.
In a white crossed a frozen River Valley stands a large house log (the central lobby, with bars and restaurants), huge sauna, rows of wood with chimney cosy chalets, a chapel and a few snow igloos... We, explorers came from the South of the continent, we are expected in our glass igloos, heated at 23 C. Dozen of bubbles in the veins of metal, how pyramid of the Louvre, which allow heavy weather to live in "live" storms of snow and clear night to admire the stars and watch the northern lights.
Part Galactic
These bombing électrisés the upper atmosphere are not a glacial sea serpent. It is a serpentine shape, precisely, out us of our somnolence to four hours of the morning: a swarm light and whitish smoke between trees, who will soon be assault the sky. Sounding like a madman reclining bed, we taste, as in a dream awake, this part Galactic, kind of Sami baptism. In all, we see three during our trip. Three shots of the sky, tinted Milky blasts of Emerald, appeal of the Nordic to change benchmarks gods. All forces of nature combined to give us the great gray OWL fever.
Because the artifice of a hotel or a tourist circuit is quickly dispelled by the immensity of the tracts of snow, pine and birch forests. The crunching of snow under the feet is music. The silence of the forest is music. Even the rumbling of snowmobiles, the smell of oil and gasoline dwarfed when appear at the top to a pristine ridge of such algae in diamond crystallized shrubs, when swirling glitter of money between the trunks glossy frost.
The first contact with the Sami people, the real, the Sami people, took place in a reindeer husbandry. It is not disappointed of the trip, expected at the foot of the bus by a proud gaillard dressed in traditional Blue King and red blood, which catches the girls to the lasso. The sleigh pulled by reindeer on a circular runway has a small side "samiland", with "licence to drive for five years" to the key. But there is obviously: tourism for the Sami herders of reindeer or not, today is a significant livelihood. It allows to reinforce certain rites and elegant craft (skins, wooden objects, daggers).
Once past this exotic setting, the breeder willingly gives you valuable information on its ancestral customs on his life today. Thus, snowmobiles which traverse forest, Taiga and frozen marshes are not only fun monsters; They allow the Sami people easily travel long distances, to better monitor their reindeer.
AME Sami
The policy of forced assimilation of the Sami people scrambled the tracks. As the ethnic characteristics of its members (small, brown hair, eyes slightly flanging) are hardly spectacular. Even in cities with large populations Sami as Inari, not far from Ivalo, you would probably like not strain of adoption Sami Sami. Those who do not engage in farming work in services. Their lifestyle is resolutely contemporary. Their determination to save their culture, to claim their identity is only more meritorious.
This Aboriginal subarctic people, come to it is not clear where (probably from Central Europe, advancing towards the North with the retreat of glaciation), quarterly between four countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia), speaking eight or nine different languages, is little more today than 75,000 souls, of which only 6,000 in Finland (a third of the population of Lapland).
Nomadic, "animistic" people originally, engaged in shamanism, the Sami have had to deal hard with geopolitical interests summing taxes and easements in each country and with Christianity conqueror how much burned shaman with their supposed to drum predict the future Additional trauma for the Finland Sami: at the time of his retirement at the end of the second world war, Nazi, to avenge the peace signed between the Finland and the USSR, army razed literally any Lapland.
Today, the Sami have their (Advisory) Parliament, flag common to members of the four countries, can learn their mother tongue at school, but still claim their land (owned by the State in Finland)
Kotas and yoiks
As apparent signs of the
culture Sami in addition to the traditional clothing worn during festivals and crafts remain the kotas, tipi in heavy fabrics or still used by the herders summer reindeer skins (or constructed wood or glass, diverted in pleasure pavilions by individuals and hotels). And then the reindeer, of course some 200,000 heads at the height of the winter before the slaughter of spring , deer frightened and shivering, animated drawings that appear solitary or in herds, the detour of a walk in the forest. These animals, it eats all, working their skin, their wood. Step of reindeer without master their owners recognize marks cut in the dagger to the ear (more than 6,000 marks listed).Although legacy living: the yoiks. These incantatory singing a little reminiscent of the Indians of America and speak of the nature, of men or animals with such a power of evocation that they seem to materialize over the words.
Inari, heart of the Sámi country, we can combine with happiness on the same day history and modernity. By first visiting the Museum Siida (basic Sami community name), in a few clear tables, large panoramic photos, objects and costumes, summarizing nicely the great features of the Sami civilization. Then, plunging into the nec plus ultra of Finnish design, at the centre of Idoli, a few kilometres away. Created by two charming Bobo Helsinki, on the great Lake Inari (and its islands, in a deep forest 3.100,) the "show-room" installed in a large wooden cabin is a trunk to the treasures. The couple Hanneli & Pekka has selected its "ten strokes of the heart" with a taste: exposed objects designed in all materials wood, fabric, glass, ceramics, steel by 10 design as rival purity in forms, elegance in the line and ingenuity functional such as these "round" of Cup wood who avoid that is burning the fingers while drinking his tea.
Hot dogs, cold water
After the East Cape in the West: the proximity of the Sweden, the mountains and large forests. The opportunity to make a small tour of dog hear by dogsled in the region of Muonio. The pleasant hotel Harriniva, located a river, which the other side is Swedish, is home to a kennel, which its owners are not just proud of more than 400 animals. We are only six six happy small huskis muscular to discover the surrounding lands. Standing on the skis of our sled, we frequently apply the brake to calm the fervour of our quadrupeds ready to devour the icecap.
For the rest, they do what they want, leading our crew to a train to hell in the large flat areas, as in the corners of the forest, without any need to harangue in Sami. The wind whips the face, the landscape scrolls at high speed, broad on a Pearl plain plans and close-ups on powdery pines. Brown squirrels to the pointed ears "startrek" jump from tree to tree, impassive reindeer observe us far away, sheep scum fringing sea ice... we would like to speak Finnish snow in a hundred different words to say.
You can admire all its nuances icy baths on a frozen lake. In the water warm a basin or the bubbling jacuzzi, behind the glass Bay of the spa of the hotel Jerris (annex of the hotel Harriniva). But to feel totally Sami, you must use the sauna smoke (a sauna heated for ten hours with Birch wood, and then opened for one hour to leave to escape the smoke) body coated with honey attention bears out and immerse in the rectangle of water at 3-4 C-cut in the Lake. A single, deliciously unbearable sensation.
Marriages frosty
Far can lead the Lappish fever Sleep in a real igloo not glass, snow, "heated" and 4 C to 23 C... Even then the play chic. Prefer to the vulgar ice mattress and his reindeer skin frozen a true bed lined, set in its carved ice box. This is what proposes Lainio snow village, a complex a psychedelic stranded with his giant igloo bar-restaurant-disco, its Aurora Borealis lighting (green, blue and red) and its concept "cosy" access to the "sas" heated and amenities directly through a tunnel of snow (practical 40 C outside). The Chapel, the wooden it also (God does not melt the summer), is very popular for weddings. The "village chief" evokes a few significant memories, as the arrival in sled to a bride just wearing a vapour dress lightly and whose skin had turned blue...
Release of the "village" between dog and Wolf. Neither dog nor Wolf in sight, but a chromatic duel of beauty between the sky gold and the blue of the forest. Silent bus slides as a ghost hitch on the snowy road. The starry night falls like a curtain of theatre on the Arctic horizon. Black light flooded, Lapland is hear the beating of his heart Sami. She whispers in the ears of the numb traveller of the shaman poet: "the country is different when you lived there erré frozen transpiré saw the Sun rise go back the country is different you know that here are ancestors roots" (1).
