3 September

Today I slept in – well, a little. I still woke at 0600, but I rolled over and went back to sleep. Then I arose at 0700 and slowly got myself ready, then checked email, etc., and was down for breakfast at 0800. A few were already halfway through, which augurs well for Friday, when I have to leave at 0800 from the hotel (and I believe there are two other Australians with me).
I had my breakfast, including toast with Vegemite, with a beautiful view out the window of the river. If you look carefully at the early photos for today, you will see the Vegemite snuck into the picture of the breakfast buffet. I could also have real tea, with milk AND WITH BISCUITS! Despite the size of the hotel and the partly homeliness of some of the facilities, it is a really nice place to stay – and very warm, if you want it to be. After breakfast I finished up and rearranged the room, putting the nearly dry washing in a less obvious place to finish drying and then packed for the day.
I was out the front at just before 0900, just as Anne arrived. I am not used to a woman opening the door for me – does this mean I am looking old? We had a good and quick run out to the reindeer farm, with two people from Barcelona TV in tow.
Once out at the farm, I realised there was only the two TV people and myself – how much more exclusive could I get? The two men of the farm were there – the father, who still runs the place and is not great (at lest today) at speaking English, and his son, who will take over the place in a few weeks when his father retires and is a tertiary-educated film maker who worked for Finnish TV in Helsinki before returning with his wife and family to the family property.
We started by going into the reindeer paddock. These reindeer will be working soon, drawing sleds. Each reindeer has a “driver’s licence” of a blue ear-tag, indicating it has been trained. They work up until eleven or so, and then retire to graze out their lives on the property. Reindeer raised for meat don’t fare so well, being slaughtered a lot earlier. The reindeer used for meat and for sled pulling are marked, so they don’t waste energy rutting. The antlers grow new each year, have a strong blood flow (they feel warn to the touch, like fingers) and can grow at up to three centimetres a day (you can almost see them growing). The father struck a tree, the feeding signal, and the reindeer suddenly appeared. We fed them (grain) pellets, which apparently they love. They don’t have large nipping front teeth like horses, so you don’t have to keep you hand flat to stop from being bitten, and they use their lips to pick up the pellets (so your hand gets slobbered all over). Reindeer don’t like being patted as they see it as an annoyance and tense their muscles to try to remove it. Also, the biggest danger to reindeer is not predators, although there are plenty of them – it is car drivers, who kill up to four thousand a year (out of two hundred thousand).
After the reindeer had finished all the pellets (which was quicker than it took to write the description) and the camera-man had got some good shots, we went out and passed by the family hot-tub – with a load of wood an some stoking, the temperature goes up to 38°C and everyone jumps in, with –25°C all around (with champagne for the adults and soft drink for the children).
We then tried reindeer lassoing, after being shown by the father how to do it. Sufficient to say that reindeer are safe from the journalist and me.
We then walked past the food storage shed (up off the ground and went to the traditional dwelling they maintained for singing and eating/drinking. Here we had coffee and learned how the knives and their sheaths are made, as well as (wooden) cups, which we had our coffee in. Then his mother came in and sang, after warming her drum made of reindeer hide and birch. She had a very strong voice and sang very well, which she put down to being made to by her parents from the age of two. Then we went to where he makes his handicrafts. On the short walk over, I found out the difference between snowmobiles and skidoos – none! Skidoo is a proprietary name for a Canadian manufactured snowmobile.
The handicrafts were very well done and were supplemented by pictures of the family (on postcards) and the aurora borealis. These were the best from up to sixty nights of photography per season. After that, we departed, with the TV team going their way and me going to the SIIDA display. Here I got “registered” so I could visit on more than one occasion, and then Anne took me to the first area of the outdoor exhibit.
I had already been to a museum and display of Sami culture (it’s spelt differently in different areas) and there a few of the group expressed dismay that we were not attending another. I now know why – this one, in just the initial outdoor display of buildings brought from elsewhere, took longer to go over than the entire previous museum. If anyone from the tour is reading this blog, look at the SIIDA photos in Scandinavia Day 16 (and 17 when I add them) and you’ll see what I mean. It took over half an hour to go over just this part one of the display (and later in the day, it took me over an hour to go through the rest by myself, and I still have to see inside, tomorrow).
After this I went back into town (five hundred metres or so) and had a quick look at the tour centre (a commercial company run by Anne and her husband) and then set out on a walk around the town.
I went to the first area where handicrafts where made and got some more souvenirs to match those I had bought out at the farm. After that, I just looked – couldn’t afford, in terms of money and weight, to get too much more (plus personal reasons). At the supermarket (and I found out what the Ks are for – K is the basic supermarket, KK has more, KKK has more still and if you see KKKK ou should be able to get almost anything) I got a baguette for lunch and got some twine. Then I walked back to the hotel (another four hundred metres) to deposit what I had bought so I didn’t cart it with me. However I had forgotten and left the items I had bought at the farm on the front seat of the minibus. On the way back to the hotel I saw pipes being put in – insulated pipes, to (I presume) stop the water freezing in winter. While walking I ate the baguette, and then walked around to the quay for the boat tour at 1400. We had decided I would do that today and the inside of the museum tomorrow as rain is forecast for tomorrow.
Around at the quay I looked through the souvenir shop there (surprise, surprise, if you’re reading this, Peter N.) and eventually boarded the boat about 1345. I thought it would be a small passenger list, given the end of the season and all that, but a whole lot piled and …, yes, you guessed it, a school excursion group! Knowing my luck there will be a school excursion on the TransSiberian!
We headed out at 1400 and got short commentaries in a number of languages including, but not limited to, Finnish, German and English. On the way out (we stopped on an island which is sacred to the Sami culture and may soon be off limits to visitors) I was speaking to four people from England – they are touring by car. At the island we all climbed to the top for a good view of Lake Inari (a huge lake) and one of the children dropped a glove, so after returning that I spoke to their teacher. They were Grade Six from Helsinki, staying at an old timber camp – outdoor toilets, water having to be carried, the children having to do the cooking (under supervision) and then taking excursions to the area around them. The teacher thinks it may be his last excursion like this – the toll is mounting! I gave him a koala pin for the classroom.
On the way back, some amazing things happened. In order: I had to tell one of the children to do up her shoelace as she was running up and down stairs with the laces very close to tripping her; the teacher told me all the children could recognise the pin was a koala (and NOT a bear); an Italian lady from Genoa who had heard me speaking of Brancaleone quietly warned me it was Mafia territory (which I knew, but it didn’t worry me, either before or while I was there) and two of the English people knew of the “traffic lights” on the road north of Lincoln (apparently RAF Waddington).
Once on shore I completed the tour of the outdoor exhibits at SIIDA. By the time I finished that it was 1730, so I walked back to town (five minutes), got a drink and then walked back to the hotel. Here I found my souvenirs from the reindeer farm were at Reception, so I thanked the lady (hotel owner) and gave a pin for her and her husband.
Then it was upstairs and process photos, do some washing, upload photos, write this blog and then, eventually, off to bed.