Lycksele Lappmark

Property for the Lapps consists of great numbers of reindeer – someone has great reindeer-power, as they say. The worst-off have 50 to 100, well-off Lapps have 300 to 700, and the rich have a thousand.

Their lands are from 20 to 35 miles in diameter.

Wild reindeer are seldom to be found in Lappmark though there are a few on the common-land between Granön and Lycksele. It often happens that people who have a large number of reindeer lose some and do not find them again until the following year. If the animals still refuse to follow when they are being driven towards the herd, they are shot.

Lappland is inhabited in many places by settlers, that is, Finns, who have settled here by command and permission of the crown.1 They occupy arable and pasture land and pay certain taxes to the crown but beyond that they, like the Lapps, are exempt from all extraordinary dues, having to provide neither soldiers nor boatsmen and being equally happy whether there is peace or war, since not even the smallest tax is levied on them.

They are allowed to settle where they will in Lappmark as long as they can bring the land into cultivation, so there can be no doubt that, given time, the whole of Lappmark will become a farming district.

The Lapps and the settlers attend church at Christmas, Easter, Whitsun and all 4 days of obligation. When they come, they remain for the whole weekend, which is why they have built their Lapp huts beside the church. The settlers also attend church at Midsummer, Michaelmas, Matthewmas and Lady Day.2 Those that live close-by come on alternate Sundays since there is a sermon then; on the other Sunday they simply hold their own household prayers.

There were no Lapps in church now even though it was Whitsuntide, for the pike fishing was at its best and that provides them with a harvest. They were thus mostly up in the mountains, each on his own land.

The forests were mainly composed of pine and birch. Where the pine forest was burnt off, birch grew up and, where it did so, the pasturage was much improved.

On the left bank of the river immediately below GRANSELEFORS there was brown sand at the top of the bank, then came a 2 yard strip of white sand, then 2 yards of purple, then small pebbles, then larger pebbles and finally the water of the river.

Birds: ‘Colymbus minimus’ [Slavonian Grebe]. Black with white patches under the wing. Various ducks, of which there were considerable numbers on this side of Lycksele as well as on the other.

It was a great pleasure to be in calm water and to view the mixed woods of birch and pine on the hills and in the valleys on both sides.

There were 13 small islands in the Granselefors rapids.

On both sides of the river I saw the huts in which the Lapps live in the summer. When they have stayed at each place for a week at most, they move on for the sake of the grazing for the reindeer and, in any case, they themselves do not thrive in one place for any length of time. They drive the whole herd, calves and all, into the river and let them swim across, for reindeer swim well even though the river here is 8 gunshots wide.

The song thrush sang towards evening, and great ice-floes lay by the shore on the north side of the forest.

Using birch bark, the Lapps make dishes, bailers for the boats, shoes, salt-casks for salting fish, and baskets.

‘Equisetum nudum s. aphyllum’ [Rough Horsetail] was growing on the shore; in most cases there was a shoot from both sides of the root. The sheaths on the stem are white and the upper and lower edges are black. What is noteworthy, moreover, is that the whole plant is perennial.