In this week’s podcast episode of Lost Cultures: Living Legacies, we explore the rich history of the Sámi. Host Alisha Prakash, Travel + Leisure‘s associate editorial director, is joined by three members of the community who are helping carry their people’s story and culture into the future.
You may not be familiar with Sápmi, a region that spans Norway, Sweden, Finland, and northwest Russia, but this large swath of land has always been special to the Sámi, the Indigenous community of the area. The Sámi are made up subgroups who speak different languages, but share a unique history and culture, including through song.
“Joik is a traditional Sámi singing method. It’s a way of showing feelings. Joik can belong to a person, animal, place, or happening,” Jon Mikkel Eirá, a Sámi guide, chef, and reindeer herder, shared in the episode. “Whenever I’m joiking, I’m always closing my eyes and visualizing the person, place, happening, or animal.” Eirá goes on to share an emotional joik of his mother, who passed away when he was just 14.
Though the history of the Sámi spans thousands of years, making them one of the oldest Indigenous groups in Europe, it hasn’t always been a happy history. As Astri Dankertsen, a professor of sociology at Nord University in Norway who specializes in Sámi-related issues, explains, their history is complex due to just how widespread they are.
“Different states have had different policies toward the Sámi. … You have the colonization of the different areas [that] look different historically, and the assimilation policies have been different in the different countries,” Dankertsen said. Several Scandinavian countries have attempted to force assimilation on the Sámi, including periods when their language and culture were prohibited. However, in the latter half of the 20th century, the group began to gain both recognition and protection, including for their all-important reindeer pastures. In 2020, the Sámi in Sweden won a three-decade-long court battle to regain the exclusive hunting and fishing rights on their ancestral lands. “It’s quite a socially and culturally complex area when talking about the Sámi today,” Dankertsen said. But it’s nevertheless a people that have been living here in the north since time immemorial.”
As for why it’s critical we learn about the Sámi, Mari Boine, a member of the Sámi community and a recording artist, shared it’s important the “knowledge that Indigenous people have all over the world doesn’t disappear because we are carrying the torch and the wisdom that our cultures had with how to survive in nature, how not to take more than you need, how to live in a sustainable way with nature.” Boine added, “This is wisdom that is needed now more than ever.”
Learn more about the Sámi, and how you can visit and interact with the community on your next trip to this wide northern region, on this week’s episode of Lost Cultures: Living Legacies—available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Player FM, or wherever you get your podcasts.
