Jokkmokk and around

Just 7km south of Jokkmokk, the Inlandsbanan finally crosses the Arctic Circle, the imaginary line drawn around the earth at roughly 66°N, which links the northernmost points along which the sun can be seen on the shortest day of the year. Crossing into the Arctic is occasion enough for a bout of whistle-blowing by the train, as it pulls up to allow everyone to take photos. However, the painted white rocks that curve away over the hilly ground here, a crude delineation of the Circle, are completely inaccurate. Due to the earth’s uneven orbit, the line is creeping northwards at a rate of 14–15m every year; the real Arctic Circle is now around 1km further north than this line. It won’t be for another ten to twenty thousand years that the northward movement will stop – by which time the Circle will have reached 68°N – and then start moving slowly south again.

Thanks to the refraction of sunlight in the atmosphere, the midnight sun can also be seen south of the Arctic Circle – Arvidsjaur marks the southernmost point in Sweden where this happens – for a few days each year. The further north you travel, the longer the period when the phenomenon is visible, and conversely the longer the polar winter. True midnight sun occurs when the entire sun is above the horizon at midnight. The following is a list of the main towns and the dates when the midnight sun can be seen; remember, though, that even outside these periods, there is still 24-hour daylight in the north of Sweden in summer, since only part of the sun ever dips below the horizon.

Among the oldest people in Europe, the Sámi – erroneously known to many as “Lapps” – are probably descended from the original prehistoric inhabitants of much of Scandinavia and northern Russia. Today there are around 58,000 Sámi, stretched across the whole of the northernmost regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia; traces of their nomadic culture have even been discovered as far south as Poland. In Sweden itself – though the population is declining – they number around 17,000 (ten percent of the population of northern Sweden), their domain extending over half the country, stretching up from the northern parts of Dalarna.

The Sámi language is a rich one, strongly influenced by their harmonious natural existence. There are no words for certain alien concepts (like “war”), but there are ninety different terms to express variations in snow conditions. One of the Finno-Ugric group of languages, which also contains Finnish and Hungarian, the Sámi language is divided into three dialects which are not mutually comprehensible. In Sweden you’ll come across two words for Sámi: the politically correct Sámi (as used by the Sámi themselves), and, more commonly, the Swedish corruption Same (plural Samer).

Reindeer, of which there are estimated to be 250,000 in Sweden (the maximum allowed by law is 280,000), have been at the centre of Sámi life and culture for thousands of years, with generations of families following the seasonal movements of the animals. Accordingly, the Sámi year is divided into eight separate seasons, ranging from early spring, when they traditionally bring the reindeer cows up to the calving areas in the hills, through to winter, when they return to the forests and the pastures.

The Sámi were dealt a grievous blow by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986, which contaminated not only the lichen that their reindeer feed on in winter, but also the game, fish, berries and fungi that supplement their own diet. Contamination of reindeer meat meant the collapse of exports of the product to southern Scandinavia, Germany, America and the Far East; promises of government compensation came late in the day and failed to address the fact that this disaster wasn’t just on an economic level for the Sámi, their traditional culture being inseparably tied to reindeer herding. However, perhaps as a consequence of Chernobyl, there has been an expansion in other areas of Sámi culture. Traditional arts and crafts have become popular and are widely available in craft shops, and Sámi music (characterized by the rhythmic sounds of joik, a form of throat-singing) is being given a hearing by fans of world music. On balance, it would appear that the Sámi are largely managing to retain their culture and identity in modern Sweden. For more on the Sámi in Sweden, visit w sametinget.se.