Steve and Cathy's Blog

We arrive in Hammerfest at 7:00am, which lays claim to being the northernmost town in the world at 70.66 degrees north latitude. This is disputed by the town of Honningsvag on the North Cape (which we will visit on July 18^th). Apparently the disagreement has to do with the central government’s definition of town. Whatever. The temperature at arrival time is 53.6 degrees F. 

Our excursion begins at 7:15, so we are up eating breakfast at the Terrace Café at 6am. We meet a lovely person from Myanmar, May Soe, that we knew from our previous trip. It continues to be very fun to see staff members we knew from before. 

We board our bus for the excursion we have chosen: Visit to a Traditional Sami Camp. Wikipedia does a good job of introducing the Sami people: “The Sámi people (also spelled Sami or Saami) are a Finno-Ugric people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway andSweden, northern parts of Finland, and the Murmansk Oblast of Russia. The Sámi have historically been known in English as Lapps or Laplanders but the terms are considered derogatory now. Sámi ancestral lands are not well-defined. Their traditional languages are the Sami languages and are classified as a branch of theUralic language family.

“Traditionally, the Sámi have pursued a variety of livelihoods, including coastal fishing, fur trapping, and sheep herding. Their best-known means of livelihood is semi-nomadic reindeer herding. Currently about 10% of the Sámi are connected to reindeer herding, providing them with meat, fur, and transportation. 2,800 Sámi people are actively involved in reindeer herding on a full-time basis. For traditional, environmental, cultural, and political reasons, reindeer herding is legally reserved for only Sámi people in some regions of the Nordic countries.”

Our guide is Sami, and his name is Tarjei. Our driver is Knute. On our way up through the hills to the Sami Camp, Tarjei explains the origins of Hammerfest. In 1798, the Danish King (Denmark controlled Norway at that point) established the town as a trading post with Russia, taking advantage of its location at the top of Scandinavia. 

As with most coastal communities in Norway, WWII had a huge impact on Hammerfest, which has the unfortunate distinction to be considered being one of the most bombed communities in all of Europe. It was a naval base during most of the war, but, in 1944, the German military, in a gesture familiar to much of the population they subjugated during the war, and following orders from Herr Fuhrer, burned the town and the county as a farewell gift. 

The economy still is dominated by the fishing industry but – no surprise – oil and gas are fast becoming one of the mainstays. Tourism, as ours and other cruise ships encourage, is a fast-growing segment as well.

We arrive at the top of Mount Salen that overlooks the town and soon are at the Mikkelgammen Sami camp. There are two segments to the tour, which are given by a very welcoming husband (Mikkel) and wife (Solveig). A photo of them heads up this post. Our group is led into the larger of the two cabins by Solveig, who will provide us with information on the Sami and their way of life.

We are seated at tables where there is a plate of smoked salmon, dried reindeer meat, smoked reindeer meat, boiled reindeer meat and bread that strongly resembles pita bread but thicker. All of it is very yummy. Cathy the salmon aficionado is especially approving of the smoked salmon. Steve eats virtually all the meat. It is tender and tasty.

I must revert to Random Fact Mode:

• It must be said that the Sami people consider that their lands were occupied by the Norwegian government from 1850 to 1980. Their existence was that of semi-nomadic people whose principal occupation was herding and tending reindeer herds, and they were looked down upon by the general population. Those that lived in towns tended to either deny their Sami heritage, or certainly felt discriminated against. 
• However, since 1980 the Norwegian government has done an about face and is extremely supportive of Sami culture and the preservation of the Sami language. I will now quote from the nordnorge.com website on the subject: “The Sami Parliament is the Sami people’s representative body in Norway and has appreciable authority on issues concerning culture, cultural heritage, reindeer farming and education. It also applies its influence on financial and business policy. The Sami language is used in nine municipalities, two counties and a range of state institutions. The language is official in Norway, but is not accorded the same prominence as Norwegian. Previously, the Sami people owned land and water communally, but the Norwegian state considered this state-owned land. Today, however, the Norwegian authorities consider the land and water in Finnmark to belong to the people of Finnmark.” Finnmark is the county at the very top of Norway in which Hammerfest is located.

• Solweig states that there are multiple dialects of the Sami language, and that some are so distinct from others that communication is sometimes difficult. Again I purloin parts of the nordnorge.com website: “A total of nine different but closely related Sami languages are spoken in the Sami region. Today, three of these dialects are in active use in Northern Norway. Sami people from the south of Northern Norway can talk effortlessly to their nearest Sami neighbours in Sweden, but cannot communicate with Sami people from the far north. The dialect boundaries do not follow the linguistic borders, however, as most of the dialects are spoken in multiple countries. The Sami language is currently the major language in inner Finnmark and is also used in small communities in most parts of Northern Norway as well as in some environments in the Northern Norwegian towns.”
• The central government has attempted to accommodate the Sami’s wish to maintain their independence, and Solweig refers to the Sami Parliament. From the nordnorge.com website, I quote: “The Sami Parliament is the Sami people’s representative body in Norway and has appreciable authority on issues concerning culture, cultural heritage, reindeer farming and education. It also applies its influence on financial and business policy. The Sami language is used in nine municipalities, two counties and a range of state institutions. The language is official in Norway, but is not accorded the same prominence as Norwegian. Previously, the Sami people owned land and water communally, but the Norwegian state considered this state-owned land. Today, however, the Norwegian authorities consider the land and water in Finnmark to belong to the people of Finnmark.”
•  Solveig refers to three segments of Sami society:
  • Reindeer Sami: those that still tend reindeer herds and follow their migration. There are several families that do this, and each family has a herd of up to 5,000 animals. 
  • Sea Sami: those that reside by the shores of the fjords and make their living from the sea. Most live in towns and have largely adapted to customary Norwegian society.
  • Inland Sami: as the name indicates, they live away from the shore, fishing from the lakes and rivers and hunting.
• Solweig tells us that today’s Reindeer Sami are only semi-nomadic. For instance, she herself teaches Sami language and social studies in a public school.

After about twenty-five minutes learning from Solveig, we leave the large, warm and bright “cabin” for the much smaller but equally cozy smaller cabin to spend time with her equally charming husband Mikkel. We are invited to sit around the fire on reindeer hides covering a bed of twigs (but, truthfully, most are sitting on benches that Mikkel amusingly says are not traditional but are for “his friends”). He goes into great depth about traditional Reindeer Sami society, admitting that only a minority of about 15-16 families in this district are involved in herding.  

He does describe their ancient religious beliefs, which are based on survival: that people are part of the earth, which can be very dangerous but also gives much. When Christianity arrived with the monks, it took from 1500 to 1800 to convert any Sami because of this survival-based religion. 

Mikkel then describes an ancient Sami tradition called joik, which is well-described in the nordnorge.com entry from which I have been cribbing: “The Sami culture has many unique forms of expression. Joik, one of the oldest song traditions in Europe, is alive and well. A joik is dedicated to a person, an animal or a place, and the harmonies reproduce the qualities of the object of the song. If you would like to chat someone up, try “joiking” him/her – it has quite an effect!” It is unique to the person singing it, and he sings several, one of which is about a reindeer that is being driven wild by mosquitoes. Steve records this as a video for our grandchildren.

We leave the cabins with a wealth of information on these intriguing people, impressed that the Norwegian government has done so well to recognize the mistakes of the past and make provision for the Sami to retain their unique heritage.

About fifty yards away, we have the opportunity to view the entire town and its harbor. Photo opportunities abound, of which Steve takes full advantage. Then its back on the bus for more anecdotes from our guide Tarjei as we return down the hills to town. A few Random Facts:

• Hammerfest now has an enormous petroleum processing plant employing eight hundred people and annually providing $25 million in property taxes.
• At this time, the oil and gas industry provides 1,600 jobs in this community, although you would be hard pressed to see evidence of it, other than the prosperity all around. This is another town that has carefully managed the huge impact such wealth has provided.
• In Hammerfest harbor lives a lone beluga whale that has been named Valdimir. He took up residence recently, and the locals joke that he’s Russian and has been sent here to perform surveillance. He is cared for by a research team based here and is fed every day at 11:30. We are going to be sure and watch out for that.
• As in some other Norwegian towns, the streets are heated by hot water pipes. We are not entirely sure the source of the heat here in Hammerfest, but it is waste heat used in Alesund from the incineration of garbage. Another intriguing technology.

It’s still early in the day, but we decide to return to the ship.  Steve is light years behind with these blogs, and Cathy the voracious reader has a couple of books commanding her attention. Again the weather has turned beautiful, warm enough to eat at one of the tables in the stern by the Terrace Café. 

We are finishing our meal when word spreads that Valdimir the Beluga Whale is frolicking in the harbor, so we rush down to our stateroom to see. Indeed he is, although a hundred yards from the ship. Photographing a playful whale is no easy task, especially from this distance, but Steve gets a few worth keeping. (Tomorrow morning, we are talking with our fellow ATW guest and friend Sharon from Arizona, and she shows us her wonderful photos of Valdimir being fed and shares them via Airdrop. We will add some of those to this post.)

The rest of the afternoon passes uneventfully, filled with quiet time, blogging, reading and other sedentary activities. Before you know it, it’s time for another episode of Eating in the Grand Dining Room. A note about this: Cathy and I have gravitated to eating by ourselves rather than sharing a table with other guests. There are two primary reasons for this choice. First of all, we enjoy each other’s company. Secondly, our experience from the previous cruise was that the others at the table with us invariably and sometimes exclusively talk about other cruises they’ve been on. Sorry, but this gets old in a hurry. A third reason might also be that we get in and out of there in about half the time, truth be told.

While we are eating, we experience one of the primary reasons we have such a high opinion of Oceania Cruises. The previous day, we each filled out a “Mid-Cruise Survey” in which we could write comments or suggestions (or complaints, we suppose, but that’s not our style). Cathy has made a suggestion in her reply; that the salt shakers in the Grand Dining Room (which don’t work well because of the humidity at sea) be replaced with salt grinders. That’s already been done in the Terrace Café and Waves Grill.

Well, Carlos the Restaurant Manager for Nautica’s three restaurants comes to our table today in response, explaining that indeed the shakers were in the process of being replaced with grinders as she had advocated. In fact, a batch had been procured but the quality was such that the metal parts began rusting (again, the high humidity) and had to be returned. We were super impressed that Oceania Cruises had 1) actually read her survey response and 2) had immediately sought her out to have a conversation and bring her up to date on this admittedly minor subject. 

That attention to detail made the end of our day on board very special. Another reason to be glad that we are on board this ship. It’s a very special place to be.