WINTER TESTS 2009-2011

SÀMI VILLAGE AND WINTERGROUP

Our wintergroup

 David, Susanne, Nils, Mats-Peter, Nadja, Lennart,Gunnel, Apmut-Ivar, Stig, Laila, Ella-Li, Karin, Lena, Sunna-Sigga and Inger.

Sámi Village / Sameby in Swedish
In Sweden there are a total of approximately 250 000 reindeer in 52 Sámi villages. A Sámi village is organised as a federation...
and it has a board which is elected at an annual meeting. Every reindeer company has a vote corresponding to its number of reindeer. The board has among other things a duty to coordinate the practical reindeer herding and related issues. The Sámi villages have an interest organisation called The Swedish Sámi National Association (Samernas Riksförbund) which mainly works with developmental, legal and service issues. The Sámi people also have their own political parliament Sametinget.

Every Sámi village has a restricted area where reindeer herding is taking place. The reindeer breeding is legally attached to the Reindeer Breeding Law (Rennäringslagen) and the individual reindeer ownership is organised as businesses. Susanne and Karin belong to Sirges Sámi village where approximately 98 reindeer breeding companies are registered and the Sámi village has approximately 500 members. In Sirges Sámi village, the biggest in Sweden, there are a total of 16 000 reindeer. Every reindeer owner marks his/her animals with his/her own reindeer mark which often historically relates to his/her family.

Winter group
During half the year (May until October) the reindeer are managed collectively up in the mountains by the members of the Sámi village. During the other part of the year (November until April) the members of Sirges Sámi village divide themselves up in winter groups.
The winter group we belong to consists of 8 reindeer breeding companies which together own 3000-5000 reindeeer.
The 8 reindeer companies are managed by 4 male and 4 female reindeer herders. This is an unusual winter group as it has 4 female reindeer herders. The winter group is aged between 28-64 years of age.

The reindeer belonging to the group have their winter grazing land west of Jokkmokk in Lapland, Sweden.

This area for reindeer grazing consists of different kind of scenery. There are mountains, rivers, bogs, moors and clear-felled areas.
This grazing land has been used for generations. That is why the ground and its conditions are well known for the reindeer herders. The grazing ground border on the mountains which means that the traditional manner of moving the reindeer between the mountain and the forest can be applied by the members of our winter group. The reindeer do not have to be moved by motorized transports, they can walk themselves between the different areas.

The moving of the reindeer to their winter grazing land takes place in connection to the sorting of the reindeer. The sorting of the reindeer constitutes of that the whole Sámi village collects their animals in a common corral, counts them, sells and slaughters etc. Every individual reindeer owner collects his/her own animals to bring them to the winter land their winter group is using. The moving varies in time depending on how big the herd is and the physical condition of the animals. To move the animals in the traditional manner takes about a week. The grazing for the animals is lichen that grows on the ground but also on trees in old forests. The food for the reindeer varies over the year. They eat for instance mushrooms, twigs, berries, herbs and grass. Some years the weather conditions as late autumn rains and early frost that a layer of ice is built which makes it hard for the reindeer to graze.

Then the reindeer owners have to give them fodder to prevent them from starving or move them to other grazing areas. It is fairly common that you move your animals in truckloads to the coastal areas - a stretch about 300-500 km.
In our winter group´s winter grazing land there are no houses, only a few roads which partly cross the area. One road has more traffic than the rest and ends westwards in Kvikkjokk. Along this road many reindeer are run over by cars. The roads are built on ground that has a lot of lichen and other food that the reindeer like.
That is why the reindeer are on the roads today. There is grazing on both sides of the road but also at the edge of the road. The salting of the roads to take away ice is also very popular among the reindeer. They lick the salt and find it very tasty.

The reason why Tannak Ltd. takes an interest in further development of technical solutions is for the survival of the reindeer breeding and the possibility for people to continue to live in the areas where there is no infrastructure. One way of participating in this future prospect is through this technial development. We hope to make it easier for young people in the future to breed reindeer effectively and in a worthwhile manner.