We live in a twenty-first century with high expectations, coupled with low boredom thresholds. Have we lost the ability to just ‘exist’?
“What can I do?” – a child’s favourite. “Go out and play” – a mother’s favourite reply. A scenario now long gone. In our rush to enter the modern age of industrialisation, leisure and technology, the art of boredom no longer exists.
Day 19 – We’re on our way to Östersund; home to the Sámi and Jamtli Museums. With Lappland’s border getting closer by the day, we’re keen to learn more about the indigenous populations of the north. How they lived then. How they live now.
It’s local election day. The Sámi museum is being used for voting. Since 1993 there’s been a Sámi Parliament of Sweden; allowing for representation in Sweden’s mainstream political system. Today the Sámi get to vote for their thirty-one representatives. Like many worldwide indigenous they’ve had to fight long and hard to receive recognition and gain some rights. For generations they’ve been looked down on by the Swedes.
We learn from Emma, the museum manager and a Sámi herself, that the Sámi people don’t like to have their names registered. As a consequence only about 10,000 vote out of an estimated population of between 20,000 and 40,000 – to an extent this undermines their parliamentary power. Yet their centuries old way of life existed without such impositions – until Swedish settlers moved here! In search of iron ore.
The Sámi Museum seems no more than a glorified shop, with a couple of exhibition rooms tagged on either side. One room is closed, due to the election, the other houses a collection of antlers and lassos.
Made-up games of Cowboys and Indians are a long gone distant memory. Lasso mastery self-taught, with help from Roy Rogers. Mr S is keen to rediscover his craft. Out back, they have a docile reindeer with huge antlers. Visitors are encouraged to have a go . . .
We mosey on over to the Jamtli Museum. It’s a brilliantly conceived time-line walk-through.
An add-on room houses an interesting and unusual display of artworks – this wind shoal our favourite.
Day 20 – Mile after mile of massive swathes of forest are centrally dissected by the Inlandsvägen – AKA E45 – our south to north mainline route. With hardly any other vehicles occupying our space it makes for comfortable, yet at times boring driving. We’re Beastie hopping between camps that are dotted along this way. Today, Storumans Camping is targeted.
Reindeer, bears, lynx, wolves – a sighting of any of these would be welcome – especially now that we’re in . . .
After hours of cab-sitting, a refreshing lakeside walk works wonders – a swim is off the menu.
One question I must ask … on the back of Norway’s oil bonanza going into their sovereign fund [ours went into tax cuts] … are the number of potholes the same as here?
Weather beginning to turn back to ‘normal’ – for me that means back to two sweaters!!
Don’t know yet Rog – tell you when we get there 🙂 Think you’d need more than two seaters here Rog, we’re above the Arctic Circle!!