Text and photos by Barbara Radcliffe Rogers
February, 2014 Vol. 18, No. 5
Reindeer – or at least the one pulling my sled – are built for comfort, not for speed. Driving a reindeer sled at a leisurely pace through the frozen fens of northern Finland gave me plenty of time to consider the differences between this ride and the more breathtaking moments of traveling behind a team of excited huskies. Of course, there were six dogs pulling the sled, and only one reindeer.
Reindeer approach sled pulling with a sense of calm dignity (hard to tell – perhaps it’s resignation), not howling and yipping excitement. Unlike dogs, they do not jump up and down in a noisy frenzy to be harnessed to a sled. I’d been dogsledding the day before, across the snow-covered tundra and frozen lakes, and even before the sleds were pulled out of their shed the air was filled with the excited yips, barks and howls of dogs hoping for a place on the team.
Reindeer are far calmer about the whole thing. They stand there awaiting a sled in bright red harnesses decorated with bells and Finnish, people who are now know as Sami, embroidery. One senses an air of complete detachment as they are attached, one to a sled, and as the driver – in this case me – settles in behind them and tucks in the reindeer skin robe to keep out the cold. Perhaps because the reindeer is facing away from the sled, he seems also unconcerned at the origin of my lap robe. Or maybe these animals have the wisdom to understand that there are some things it’s better not to think too deeply about.
I had a lot of time to consider these profundities about the attitudes of reindeer as I rode – or didn’t. We’d started off into the woods at a smart enough pace for a reindeer. But not long after the trail turned into the woods and well out of sight of the cheery man with the weathered face and pointed hat who’d given me my driving lesson back at the camp, Blitzen noticed a tasty little tidbit of gray moss sticking through the snow and stopped. Clearly, the name I’d given him because I can’t pronounce anything in Finnish, was not well chosen. Lightning in any language, he was anything but.
I was in northern Finland, near the Arctic Circle in Rovaniemi, to immerse myself in winter. Lapland is a designated northern region covering Finland, Sweden and Norway, the area where the Sami people live. The Sami, now recognizing their ethnic identity, were formerly known as Laplanders.
I’d already been downhill skiing, skied across the fens on lighted trails in the long dark evening, ridden around town on a kick sled, slept in an igloo and watched the Northern Lights dance overhead until I thought my eyeballs might freeze. But somehow this experience, although it started well enough, was not scoring high on my Richter scale of earthshaking activities.
As the ill-named Blitzen munched contentedly, I remembered having seen this moss at the Arkticum, a stunning museum of the Arctic in nearby Rovaniemi, where I learned about the Sami, the semi-nomadic peoples of Lapland who herd reindeer. And who invite travelers to visit their camps and take a spin of their own on a reindeer sled, as I was doing. Well, not exactly a spin in my case.
From the museum I remembered the name of this gray moss; it’s called reindeer moss. As he followed this little patch off the trail and into the woods, I realized the source of this moss’s name. Blitzen had found his own personal feast and it appeared equally clear that he was a follower of the slow food movement. Meanwhile, I sat on the sled wondering how to say “mush” in Finnish. Or anything at all in Finnish that might encourage him back onto the trail.
Lacking in Finnish sweet talk, I tried stirring Blitzen from his lunch by shaking the reins, as the man in the embroidered hat had demonstrated in my sled-driving lesson. No deal. I thought about getting off the sled and trying to lead him back onto the path, which was by now well out of sight. Then I considered the consequences. With me off the sled, Blitzen might suddenly blitz off and leave me standing there in the snow to trudge back to camp sledless. I wasn’t sure I could explain the loss of a sled and a reindeer in English, and definitely couldn’t in Finnish.
Finally the elf-like man in the absurd Sami hat came looking for me and convinced Blitzen (whom I had by then renamed Dodder) to come home. The man felt so badly about my misadventure – or non-adventure — that he took me for a long ride on his sled, behind a bigger reindeer whose mind seemed more intent on a patch of moss much farther away. Somewhere in Sweden, I think.
By the time we circled back to the camp, I understood why Santa’s nose is likened unto a cherry. I hoped my own was still there, along with the rest of my face, but I couldn’t feel either. I warmed up inside a kota, the tall tipi-like Sami house, where I sat close the campfire in its center on reindeer skins. By now the sledmaster had become chef, and this elf-of-many talents was deftly carving slices of cured venison and grilling them over the fire in the center of the kota, along with crunchy wheat toast. Both were delicious, and as I munched, the feeling slowly returned to my face.
It was a cozy camp here at the Arctic Circle, with canvas walls and a circle of rough wooden benches around the inside. They were covered with a double layer of thick-furred reindeer hides on which I sat. More reindeer skins. Transport, food, warmth and Sami interior décor … My reverie about this immortality of the reindeer in Sami life was interrupted by the man, still looking elf-like in his funny hat. He presented me with my “Reindeer Driving License” to bring home, and never mentioned how badly I had failed the road test.
If You Go: For information on reindeer and dogsledding, and other activities, see www.visitrovaniemi.fi