The morning after the Northern Lights tour, I was up bright and early to go to my next tour – reindeer! The girls weren't coming with me on this one and decided to stay in bed instead. I didn't blame them, but me being me I had to make the most out of every moment.
I was picked up by the guide in his Sámi clothes and furry hat at about 10am. I'd already had an adventurous morning after slipping and falling on my arse walking to the meet up point (I'm terrible on ice!), so it was nice to climb in the back of the warm van. Another 4 people joined me and then we head off.
His farm was about an hour away, and when we got out of the van this very excited puppy came bowling over. I almost forgot all about the reindeer to hang out with the puppy, but we were rounded up and taking into a nearby shed. The guide had all these snow suits hanging up, along with the floppy furry hats. I gratefully donned a suit and then we went out to the sleds. He was taking us reindeer sledding, then we were going to feed the reindeer their lunch. Because of our odd-sized party, I sat in the front sled with the guide and a little Sámi girl who had come out of the house. She had toddled over to the sled and sat down, apparently she loves going on sled rides!
Afterwards, we went to a pen full of reindeer to feed them. We were each given a bucket and strict instructions not to look down at them while they feed - this was because they could lift their heads up very quickly and get you with one of their antlers. Gosh they were greedy buggers though, almost pulling the bucket down several times because they were all trying to get their heads in at once. Unfortunately, you couldn't really pat them either as they were quite scared of us and only came over looking for food, otherwise they avoided us. They were probably friendlier to the guide as he was their owner, and primary food-giver!
Next we went into a laavu nearby - this is a tent that is made with a pole in the middle with a circle of canvas around it, a bit like a circus tent. There is a hole left in the middle at the top for the smoke from the fire to escape. Our guide was then telling us about the Sámi culture - how they herd the reindeer from area to area depending on the time of year, how there are a lot of dangers to overcome, not least falling into a not-so-frozen lake (he also gave us tips if that ever happened) and eagles taking the baby reindeer! Yep, eagles. He also showed us some of the ceremonial clothes and things they wore for weddings and other events. It sounded like a simple but tough existence throughout all of his stories, but one that I thought sounded quite enjoyable. It was then lunch time!
I had marked myself down as a vegetarian (I'm not, I just don't eat fish or a lot of meat), which I was very glad for as they served reindeer stew. I'm sure it was lovely but after just having met and fed some of them, I didn't really want to eat them. Apparently, though, eating a stew entirely made of vegetables would have made me a rich person in the olden days, as there would have been very few veggies available in winter in the past. How times have changed... The guide then sang us a traditional Sámi song or "joik". It was a little like yodelling.
We got back into the van and back to Tromsø where we said goodbye. It was a really good day, a bit different from the previous day but I was really glad I got to learn more about the Sámi people.