Lycksele Lappmark

Almost all the tussocks in the bog or moss or mire were found to consist of ‘Juncellus aquaticus’ [Deergrass] which was now bearing its small flower.

The Lapps like drinking schnaps, something that is observable in all fishermen. I do not know what the Lapps would rather do than hunt and fish.

1st June. With much exertion we travelled by boat the whole night – if it can properly be called night when the light did not diminish at all, even though the sun was absent for about 1 1/2 hours and it grew rather cold. The settler accompanying me had to wade in the river and drag the boat behind him 3 miles at a time, for which purpose he had made himself shoes of birch bark. In the morning we went ashore to seek a guide, emissary or Lapp willing to take me further. We found an empty hut immediately, hastened 1 3/4 miles on to a second hut, which was also empty, and 1 mile from there to the 3rd likewise empty. After that I sent my man on to a 4th hut to find someone there. If there was anyone.

The ground was very barren and sandy, and stones, which were in short supply, were only to be found on the river bank. The pines grew sparsely but tall, their gaze directed at the heavens. I saw here vast tracts of the finest timber I have ever seen. Heather, cowberry, and ‘Muscus renorum’ [Reindeer Moss] grew on the groimd. Wherever the ground sloped slightly, smaller pines were growing, though for the most part there was birch with cowberry, blaeberry. ‘Polytrichum’ [moss] and ‘Muscus tectorius’ [moss] growing on the ground.3 In the drier places, where the large pines grew, logs of the finest quality lay blown down this way and that way by the wind so that progress became almost impossible. This land seemed to me like the home of Pan.4

The Lapps are always careful to ensure that their dwellings have a supply of cold water close-by in the form of good cold springs.

They lie to both sides of the fire, people lying quite naked with only a reindeer skin over them. Neither men nor women are ashamed to stand up naked and get dressed.

In the summer, when they have no fresh water to drink and are forced to drink warm lake-water, they suffer from severe pains in the belly. The belly and the soft underbelly are afflicted by cramp, the genital area aches and the urine is often bloody; this is a sort of colic and lasts one or, very occasionally, two days. They also get it from drinking on an empty stomach and then it is called “hote”.

Reindeer antlers lie scattered around their “kåtor” and what is interesting is that they are gnawed and half-eaten by squirrels.5

The horns on the reindeer had just begun to grow and were furry, from 1 foot to 18 inches long and spongy under the skin. There were small drops of blood on them in the places where mosquitoes had bitten them.

Lice and fleas do not exist in Lappmark.

We came in the evening to an island where there were fishermen who were farmers from Granön 45 miles away. They had built a house for themselves here, just like a sauna hut but without a stovepipe so that the smoke went out through the door. They slept on moss. They had hung up their fish to dry, 300 pounds of it, mostly pike and some char. The guts and fat had been scraped out of them and put aside to ferment; from it they would produce a fat or lard for greasing shoes.

They collect the scales and dry them and the fins, and from this they boil up a watery glue. They dip their nets in this after dyeing them with birch bark and it makes the colour last longer.

The roe is dried for making bread, dumplings and gruel.

They throw the liver away because they claim that it causes sleepiness and headaches.

They had been here 6 weeks and intended to stay another fortnight, as long as the pike continued spawning. For the most part they eat only fish, especially roe and other innards.

They pay no taxes to the crown for this, nor do they pay the Lapp who owns the water, and they drive him away even though he pays his tax. He does not dare set out even the smallest nets there, for they take them and throw them in the trees, as they told me they had often done.