Sámi People
On our first day out of quarantine, we stopped in Bodo and had a short visit with a Sami family. Since I was still getting my sea-legs back, I did not write much about that on that post. So I wanted to say a bit more.
The Sámi people are the Indigenous population of northern Scandinavia, with a homeland that stretches across northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and into Russia’s Kola Peninsula.
From the mid-1800s until well into the 20th century, the Norwegian government pursued a wide-ranging campaign of “Norwegianization” aimed to assimilate Sámi people into the Norwegian majority culture. Their story reminded me of some of the stories I heard from my mother growing up in Cajun culture in south Louisiana.
We had a short tour around Hammerfest, one of northern Norway’s oldest towns. In the Museum of Reconstruction, we learned about their experiences during World War II.
Because of its ice-free harbor, Hammerfest was an important naval base throughout the German occupation of Norway. Parts of the town suffered bomb damage, but the most damage was done by German forces themselves at the end of the war with Hitler’s “scorched earth” policy.
Meridian Monument
Hammerfest marks the northernmost point of the Struve Geodetic Arc, a chain of 19th-century survey triangulations stretching down to the Black Sea that yielded the first accurate measurement of a meridian. Modern digital techniques have shown the original measurement to be just a few hundred feet out.
