Lapland
We spent two days in northern Finland in Lapland. We traveled by bus towards Ivalo. We had lunch with a Sami family who run a “camp” and fixed us a good lunch.
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- gushing river
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- river
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- at the camp
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- meal
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- family
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- reflections
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- ligonberries
We visited a reindeer farm run by Sami people. They talked about caring for the reindeer (they are all owned) and a bit about Sami culture. Only recently is the culture recognized again as being something worth keeping. For example, the man learned only Finnish but children nowadays do learn the Sami language in school.
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- Sami guide and friend
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- concentrating!
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- enjoying the feeding
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- long hoofs – they click when walking
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- 2 weeks old
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- reindeer antlers
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- antlers!
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- in house waiting for coffee
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- Sami flag
Gold mining used to be important in the late 1800s in this area. We stopped at a park where a man is very enthusiastic about gold mining. He has recreated a gold mining town with copies of buildings from Colorado and Alaska. He himself has traveled all over the world to compete in contests in panning for gold. He has won many awards. The World Gold Mining Competition in 2019 is to be held here. We had a chance to try panning and Ron found a tiny flake!
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- replica from Skagway, Alaska
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- panning for gold
One evening we broke into smaller groups and had a supper in a Sami home. We had a delightful family. The wife is a health inspector, the husband leads snow mobile tours and does construction, and they have a very talkative and cute 2-year-old. The home was lovely. The wife had designed it and the husband built it. The meal itself was excellent.
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- climbing
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- start of wood pile
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- home
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- view from inisde
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- family
