Visiting the Swedish Sami: A Lost Nomadic World, Timeless Nomadic Wisdom
Twenty hours later, I finally set foot on the thick blankets of snow in Lapland, northern Sweden. It was seven o’clock in the morning, and the dawn had not yet fully broken over Jokkmokk; however, the light reflecting off the brilliant white snow was enough to reveal the silhouettes of the nearby trees.
Everything around was steeped in silence, save for the small railway station, which had stirred into life with the arrival of our train. Most passengers had come for the 418th Jokkmokk Sámi Market.
The Sámi are an indigenous people inhabiting the northern reaches of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. The geography of the Arctic region has shaped their way of life. For millennia, the Sámi adapted to the harsh climate and seasonal shifts through reindeer nomadism. Today, most Sámi have transitioned to a settled way of life, yet the nomadic traditions of the past continue to play a pivotal role in their culture and identity.
A deep blue hat adorned with characteristic colourful Sámi stripes—waiting for me at the station was John, a Sámi friend of my professor. Framed by the hat, his face appeared as pale as the snow. Wearing shoes made of reindeer hide, John waved as he approached. He was slender, but his spirited energy belied his seventy years. I quickly jogged forward to greet him with a handshake.
Before we set off for his home, John wanted to show me the area’s first “famous sight”. Stepping five metres away, he pointed to a completely blank white board: “Look! This is our tourist information.”
The temperature was so low that the board was entirely obscured by frozen ice; nothing was visible. Yet, this peculiar sense of humour brought a touch of warmth to me in the minus twenty-degree cold.
I. The Reopened Sámi Market
“You absolutely must come back in the summer!” he exclaimed, his eyes brimming with anticipation. “We’ll go fishing in the mountain lakes and hunt moose!”
After arriving at John’s cabin, dropping off my bags, and greeting his girlfriend, Lisabeth, we headed straight for the market. The Jokkmokk Market opens on the first Thursday of February each year and lasts for three days; today was the opening day.
Beyond the trade and commerce, the market features over 60 simultaneous cultural and artistic activities celebrating Sami heritage. It is said that this tradition has remained unbroken for over four hundred years, having been held online for only two years during the pandemic. This year marks the first time since the pandemic that the market has returned to an in-person format.
John explained that the market was not originally intended for trade or cultural exchange; rather, it was established by the King of Sweden to tighten control over the population in the north. In the early 17th century, the Swedish Crown set up permanent markets near Sámi winter settlements across the Lapland territories on both shores of the Gulf of Bothnia. These served as hubs for census taking, tax collection, legal proceedings, and missionary work. More than four centuries later, the market has evolved into a vital centre for Sámi cultural exchange.
I followed John as we wove through the crowds, where young Sámi people in traditional dress were a common sight. John paused frequently to greet people; it seemed as though he knew everyone there. It reminded me vividly of walking through the rural markets of my hometown in Anhui with my parents, where a relative appeared at every turn. Indeed, these were all his cousins—some thirty of them in total, hailing from every corner of Lapland.
Their occupations vary: some sell handcrafted Sámi silver jewellery at the market, others sell air-dried reindeer and moose meat from their own hunts. Some, like John, are writers; others work in television promoting Sámi culture, or are renowned musicians specialising in Joik, the traditional Sámi form of song. Even the reindeer caravan, a fixture of the market’s parades for decades, is run by a cousin of his who is a reindeer herder. I must admit, at that moment, I felt the true power of family ties.
Their diverse professions reveal how a people once sustained by reindeer nomadism have now integrated into every sector of Swedish society. Statistics suggest that of the 80,000 to 100,000 Sámi today, only 10% are still involved in reindeer-related livelihoods. Without their traditional dress, it would be difficult for an observer to tell a Sámi person from a Swede.
II. Hunting and Fishing: The Dietary DNA of the Sámi
When I returned to the cabin with Lisabeth in the evening, I found John preparing the moose meat I had been too hesitant to splurge on during the day! His cooking method was simple: after thawing, trimming the tendons, and salting it in the morning, he simmered it in a large clay pot of plain water for several hours with some spices. It was then sliced and served with redcurrant jelly.
In Sweden, pairing meat with jam is common. I wasn’t keen on it at first, but I eventually grew accustomed to it. The fresh, sweet-and-sour jam not only balanced the flavour of the meat but also cut through the richness—it was a surprisingly wonderful experience.
The moose we ate was hunted by John himself in the mountains last year, weighing over 300kg. Five hundred years ago, the Sámi of Jokkmokk still relied on hunting, fishing, and gathering for survival. Due to the stark seasonal variations, they led a semi-nomadic existence to seek out food resources at the right time and place. Later, the expansion of agriculture from the south cleared many forests and encroached upon Sámi lands; coupled with government taxes, they turned to reindeer herding to generate the economic income needed to pay these levies.
The Sámi once migrated alongside their herds, but today most herders have established settlements in the mountains. Skis, once the primary mode of transport, have long been replaced by snowmobiles, AWD vehicles, and helicopters, and the reindeer industry has become highly modernised. Although the moose we ate was wild, wild reindeer disappeared from Sweden in the early 20th century. Currently, there are approximately 260,000 reindeer herded by Swedish farmers, with about 50,000 slaughtered annually for food, furs, and tools.
Sweden also has one of the highest densities of moose in the world, and in Lapland, one can occasionally spot them strolling through the forests beside the roads. During the autumn hunting season, 250,000 licensed Swedish hunters venture into the woods, culling nearly 100,000 moose calves. In the spring, another 100,000 calves are born. One must be extremely cautious when driving here; you certainly do not want to collide with an adult moose weighing four or five hundred kilograms.
Two days later, John produced another treat for dinner: whitefish caught in the waters of Luleå. John is obsessed with fish—he loves both catching and eating them—a passion likely rooted in his hometown’s riverside location.
In Norrbotten County, where Jokkmokk is located, there are over 20,000 lakes spanning thousands of kilometres. Brown trout and grayling can be found in the lakes that dot the landscape; in the highlands, salmon can even be caught, while perch, pike, and whitefish are more common in the lowlands.
While the Sámi no longer rely on fishing for their livelihood, the tradition remains etched into the genes of many. For them, it is also a vital indicator of the health of the aquatic environment.
He seems more inclined to follow traditional dietary habits, or perhaps some childhood experiences have made him extremely cautious regarding the topic of North-South integration.
Three: A Past He’d Rather Not Recall
On the first night, fifteen of us children slept in one large room. No one could sleep; there was nothing but the sound of sobbing. As I cried, I longed for the reindeer-hide mattress I’d slept on the night before—it was so much warmer. And, of course, I missed my family. But there is no point in speaking of it now; it cannot recover those nine years of my childhood. That is a shadow that has followed me all my life.”
He paused for a long while, his gaze fixed either on the distance or on the past: “Besides, I don’t want to spend my life as a victim. Life doesn’t move forward if that is how you think.”
Lisabeth joined our conversation, speaking of her grandmother.
She recalled seeing a photograph of her grandmother for the first time at an exhibition in Stockholm. As depicted in the film *Sami Blood*, the Sámi were once subjected to racial studies by European countries, including Sweden. Researchers would visit boarding schools, ordering children to strip completely and line up to be measured and photographed in specific poses under their direction.
Lisabeth’s grandmother was one of those children. Yet, rather than feeling anger, she spoke with a sort of wry humour born of acceptance: “I just thought to myself, how on earth is my grandmother here? It’s so strange…”
IV. Land and Resource Conflicts
Beyond racial discrimination, conflicts over land and resources have long persisted between the Sami people and the Swedish government.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Swedish government seized vast tracts of land used by the Sami for grazing and hunting to make way for agricultural cultivation. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Swedish forestry and mining industries expanded into Sami territories; these industrial activities often disregarded the needs of the Sami and their traditional land-use practices, resulting in the degradation of many forests and lakes.
Last century, the Swedish government introduced regulations and policies designed to control Sami reindeer herding, while simultaneously constructing a series of hydroelectric dams on Sami land—one of which was built right on John’s doorstep.
In January this year, a Swedish state-owned mining company discovered massive rare earth deposits in Kiruna, near Jokkmokk. These minerals are critical components for new energy technologies, including electric vehicle batteries and wind turbines.
While most Europeans celebrate the promise of the green transition, the local Sami are increasingly anxious, as mining will inevitably disrupt traditional reindeer migration routes. Furthermore, the potential contamination of nearby water sources by the mines is a source of deep concern for many Sami.
Both historical and contemporary factors have left a profound and lasting mark on the lives of the Sami, contributing to their marginalisation and a pervasive sense of exclusion, while inflicting irreversible damage on the environment. Compounded by global warming, regions such as Jokkmokk—where the ecosystem was already fragile—have become increasingly vulnerable.
Lisabeth’s hometown sits atop a layer of permafrost. In recent years, villagers have noticed bubbles constantly rising from the lakes in these permafrost regions—methane and carbon dioxide that exacerbate the greenhouse effect. The villagers once felt that climate change was a distant concern, never imagining it would manifest right before their eyes.
Unlike some modern Swedes, who view nature either as a ‘pristine wilderness’ for sensory pleasure or as a resource bank for industrial development, the Sámi and many other indigenous peoples believe that the ideal state of nature is balance—a balance that is respected only when humans interact with and utilise the natural world with moderation.
In recent years, Sámi parliaments, environmental organisations, and indigenous communities have forged alliances to protest government policies on land and resource development. These actions include bringing legal suits against mining and logging companies to halt environmental destruction, protesting the sacrifice of their livelihoods for the sake of a so-called ‘green transition’, and demanding that the government base land-use decisions on traditional Sámi ecological knowledge.
Simultaneously, the Sámi are actively using the media and artistic expression to raise public awareness about the importance of indigenous culture and environmental conservation.
V. Conclusion
The paradox of the industrial path to sustainability reminds us that it is time to learn from the traditional ecological wisdom of indigenous peoples. Although the nomadic cultures of the past have long since declined, this perspective on nature—one that advocates for respect and moderation—can still guide us through the midst of today’s environmental and climate crises.
https://sweden.se/life/people/sami-in-sweden
https://www.laits.utexas.edu/sami/diehtu/siida/hunting/jonsa.htm
Unless otherwise stated, all images are provided by the author
Editor: Zen