Norway Pics #2

Ready to see a bit more of Guovdageiadnu?

Here's a view of part of the village. The village is spread out a bit on both banks of this river. I've forgotten the name of the river, unfortunately. This is what I see outside my hotel room. I took this shot when I walked down to the village and back to the hotel.



I walked down to the main Lutheran Church. It took about 25 minutes or so. Afterwards, I walked into one of their grocery stores. It sorta looks like a Winco Foods, for those of you who live in Oregon.



The next day, we got a tour of the new building for Sami University College. It will also hold the offices of some of the local Sami Parliament offices of language and education. It's gorgeous.




This is a design of cloudberries at the entry way for the building. The cloudberries are much larger than normal size - in Alaska, we call them salmon berries.




It's Norwegian law to make sure that public buildings have artwork in them. So, the cloudberries was one touch and they will have several different designs on the handrails that lead down to the "cantina" or cafeteria where students will eat. This was one design already on the handrail.




The handrails are for a stairway that leads down to the cantina. The stairway is made of birch, which is the species of all the local trees. We're looking over the stairs from a floor above.



The next day, I snapped this photo of Renee, Mikhil Nils, and Puju. Renee is from Hawaii, Mikhil was raised as a reindeer herder and will soon finish his Ph.D. in the social sciences, and Puju is from Greenland. Puju knows indigenous peoples from all over the Arctic - he kept running into people here that he's known over the years. He's a linguist. Renee is a geographer.



Later, we visited the Sami silversmith in the village. Her name is Kristine Haetta. I bought a necklace from her, but I haven't taken a photo of it yet.



Later that night, I took this picture from outside my hotel room window at 1am. It's still light out. I think we are at about 69 degrees north latitude (see wikipedia's entry) and I think Puju said today that it gets about 23 hours of light this time of year.



The next day, we had lunch with Maret (last name is escaping me - sorry!), the Vice Rector for Sami University College (like a Vice President) and Ole Hendrik Magga, who is a linguist and also active in politics - I think they said he was the first President of the UN's Indigenous People's Forum, and Nobuhle Hlongwa.



Here's a picture of the whole group - Nobuhle took the picture for me. I look a bit tired at the other end of the table. I am sitting next to Kaisa.



Later, we saw an exhibit of handicrafts, made by students at Sami University College. I'm still trying to get the differences between Norwegian university colleges and universities - I think university colleges are usually more specialized and maybe they are geared more for professional-kinds of work, rather than academic. However, Maret stated that they were hoping to become a university sometime in the future. This is a wool covering - the design is made from dyed wool, which is tacked on and then the whole thing is wet down, then cleaned with soap, rinsed and dried, if I understood the process correctly. I love the design - Sami are reindeer herders and salmon fishermen - both are on this design.



This young man is a Finnish Sami - you can tell by the cut of his shirt. He carved his own bone clip that fastens below his neck and also the bone buttons on his belt.



We had dinner last night at Kaisa's house. Her husband is seated to the left in this picture and Kaisa is on the right. Her husband, Nils, made a wonderful dinner of salmon, boiled potatoes, salad, and then we had cloudberries and cream. Yummers! They have a very nice house, with a lot of Sami artwork.



I'll write more about what we were up to later. For now, I'll sign off. Hopefully you have enjoyed the pictures!