Finnmark Field Fun!

When I told people that I was going to live in Tromsø, Norway for a year, this was generally followed by describing its location as “wayyyyy Northern Norway.” For most people Tromsø seems like the end of the world. Little do they know that from Tromsø you can drive almost 1000km farther north and west and still be in Norway – in fact you would most likely be at our field site in Neidan, Finnmark, the northernmost county in Norway. The 2 day road trip that we took to arrive at our little palsa wetland on the border of Finland showed me a vastly immense and diverse country. I only realized how extent of how huge Northern Norway really is as I sat holding the map that we were using to navigate. I was sitting in the back seat of the van and the map just kept unfolding…and unfolding…and unfolding…by the time I had it spread out it stretched the entire length of the seat and took another person to hold. We are talking serious wilderness here.

We kicked off our field season the night before our departure with a traditional Norwegian dinner cooked by Christiane, a fellow lab mate. The meal consisted of finnbiff, which is very thinly sliced reindeer meat, prepared with mushrooms and onions in a cream sauce and served with tangy red tyttebær, the Norwegian version of cranberry sauce. The reindeer was raised by a Saami family (little did I know that I would see countless reindeer raised for this purpose over the next few weeks) in Northern Norway, and was smelled delicious enough to tempt my mostly-vegetarian self into trying it. I’m glad that I did – it was delicious. 

Graduating from a college steeped in Norwegian tradition and heritage, I had a very stereotypical idea of what the Norwegian countryside and coastline would look like – fjords and snowy mountains, with small villages scattered throughout. After driving across hundreds of kilometers of Northern Norway I can safely say that this image was not entirely incorrect. We started our journey off by passing through Balsfjord, a beautiful fjord and village outside Tromsø which is every bit the picture of an idyllic Norwegian scene. When I have successfully a) become a filthy rich or b) conned a Norwegian man into marrying me so I can live here, Balsfjord is where I’ll buy my house. This was my very first glimpse of the beautiful countryside that I would see on our field expedition, and certainly made an impression.

 

As we drove further inland from the coast, the countryside began to subtly change. The mountains mellowed into rolling hills, fjords were replaced by rushing rivers. We entered sub-arctic boreal highlands dotted by hundreds of lakes, and then in the blink of an eye we were passing through low-growth forest and shrub land. Fertile farm soils gave way to sandy dunes, and rivers braided together and dispersed again. As I watched our progression I was frequently reminded of similar landscapes in very distant lands. Scenes of Russia flashed through my mind, and even Northern Minnesota, New Hampshire, even Northern California. But even in their similarities, the landscape that was zooming past my window was totally unique and most often completely unexpected. There is no way to stereotype or condense the diversity of ecosystems found here, but most people think only a few of them when they picture Norway. 

Alta River Valley

Peat wetlands near Lakselv, Finnmark

Fog on the Neidan River at 2am - note the late-night fly fisherman

As quickly as we crossed ecosystems, we crossed national borders too. I quickly became used to popping in and out of Finland, although the first time it seemed exciting. Another country visited! But by the end of the trip, entering another country seemed about as exciting as crossing the street.

In some ways, borders mean nothing. In the far north, where populations are so sparse and the landscape is not dominated by towns or human settlement, there is no real change in landscape that marks the border of Norway from that of Finland or Sweden. “Border control” as you might imagine it is almost non-existent. You realize how arbitrarily we impose our demarcations on the landscape with very little consideration to what is already there, and how little those delineations matter to anything but us. Most times the invisible line that divides one nation from another, that determines a sense of national identity for many people, is a product of negotiations hundreds or thousands of kilometers away, drawn without consideration of what was already there.

One of the countless villages we passed through on our travels - in Finland? Norway? Who knows.

But these lines drawn on the landscape, although they can at times seem meaningless and artificial, hold real power. One minute you’re standing in Norway, which its own currency and language, and then three steps later you’re in Finland, an EU member state that has a completely different language, currency and legal system. How can a border mean so much but at the same time so little?

This conundrum of national borders and boundaries that mean nothing and yet simultaneously mean everything is one that is felt strongly by the indigenous peoples of Northern Scandinavia. The Sami are an indigenous people that inhabit northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and parts of Western Russia. Their ancestral lands span all four of these nations, but they have been divided between these four nations and reduced to much smaller holdings than in previous times. Not only have their lands been divided between these four nations, but the people themselves have been divided into different groups – Norwegian Sami, Finnish Sami, etc – and this has caused fragmentation of their language and development of different linguistic dialects. 

Our first overnight stop of the trip was in Karasjok (or in Sami, Kárášjohka), which is the seat of the newly established Sami parliament in Norway. We had the chance to tour the parliament and visit several museums on Sami culture and history. It was very encouraging to see how Sami culture is being revitalized in Northern Norway, despite attempts by the Norwegian government in the mid 1900’s to completely eliminate this rich culture and body of traditions. The relationship between the modern Sami and Norwegian governments is complicated to say the least, but the Sami are making progress in reestablishing their rights in Norway. In Finnmark, students are able to choose to have Sami as their first language in schools, and in fact the primary language spoken and printed on signs here is Samish. The brief foray that I had into this culture was fascinating, and left me wanting to learn more about the Sami people and their rich history and traditions.  

Sami Parliament in Karasjok, Finnmark

Reindeer boots at the Sami Cultural Museum

After two days of driving through beautiful countryside we finally arrived in Neidan, where our field site is located. I will talk more about our research in another post, and won’t comment too much on what we did while in Finnmark. But it was a great week and I really enjoyed getting to know my fellow lab mates. The mix of German, English and Norwegian spoken was at times comical, and a great deal of our time was spent laughing about things lost in translation or reflecting on differences between our homelands. Remote field work really brings a group together; there’s not much else to do in Neidan other than sit around a campfire or go fishing, so we had lots of time to get to know each other. It was a great week of hard work, great camaraderie, good food and beautiful weather!

Home sweet home - our cabin/field lab

Enjoying breakfast outside while planning the day's field sampling

Hard at work - collecting porewater samples!

On our way to Finnmark we had driven the more direct inland route, which followed the Alta River. On the way back, we chose to drive along the coast and where totally wowed by view and view of breathtaking fjords and kilometers of rugged coastal cliffs. Although a slightly longer drive, it was well worth it…

Fjord near Alta, Finnmark

Although absurdly beautiful in the summer and full of sun and warmth, Northern Norway can be fickle, and is transformed in the winter to a much colder and harsher place. I frequently found myself wondering how people manage to live there year round, in such small isolated communities. We drove through small towns fairly frequently, where people eke out a living even in the cold and dark winter months. I can’t imagine the isolation they must feel as roads are cut off by snow and darkness enfolds them for months at a time. It is certainly not an easy life, but one that must have rewards that I also can’t imagine. Many towns in Finnmark are predominantly composed of Sami families that rely upon reindeer herding and husbandry for their livelihoods. As the desire for a “modern” western lifestyle starts to infiltrate these areas, less young people want to choose this more traditional way of life that, although is part of their culture, can be a harsh and isolating existence. We heard from several Sami that the number of young people in the region is declining as more choose to move to larger cities in the south and the Sami reindeer husbandry traditions are at risk of becoming obsolete in future years.

 

So 3000 kilometers, 50 kilos of sediment, hundreds of vials of gas and water samples, and countless cups of coffee later, we arrived back where we started, in Tromsø. Overall, it was a fantastic few weeks. I feel lucky to have been able to explore the beauty of Northern Norway and witness the immense diversity found here – it was a great way to kick off my year here. It also made me so excited to see the rest, there are still so many Norwegian destinations awaiting me! Next I’m off to Oslo and the Fulbright orientation! Stay tuned!