Saami, Inuit share common problems

INARI, Finland — The Governor General’s quick side trip to Inari, a Saami centre of 2,200 in northern Finland, was a chance for Saami, Inuit and the Canadians visitors to learn and share.

Last week’s brief visit stuck to the practical and simple issues of people, culture, the land and animals, in contrast to previous stops on the state visit to Helsinki, Oulu and Rovaniemi.

As a Saami herder fed one plump animal, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson wanted to know what reindeers usually eat.

“They eat three times as much in summer as they do in winter,” the man explained to Clarkson. “They like birch leaves and mushrooms. This summer, there were plenty of mushrooms so they’re well-prepared for winter.”

At the reindeer farm outside of Inari, inside a fire-lit log tipi, Into and Marit Ann Paadar accompanied their traditional drum, the romppu, and performed Saami songs, or joiks.

Into and Marit explained that Saami in Finland have three very different ways to say thank-you, depending on which Saami group they come from — giittu, takk or spasi.

When they first married 30 years ago, they couldn’t understand each others’ dialect, so they adopted Finnish as their common language.

The Canadians also visited Inari’s Saami museum, called the Siida or “village,” where they were entertained by young Saami singers. For more than an hour they separated into small groups to discuss education, the economy, reindeer herding, health and the arts with Saami specialists.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, learned from a Saami doctor about northern Finland’s understaffed health system and how social problems affect Saami as much as chronic health problems.

“We share the same struggles in health care,” said Watt-Cloutier. “As the histories are similar, the consequences are similar too.”

Watt-Cloutier, Nunavut Commissioner Peter Irniq, Mary May Simon, Canada’s Arctic Ambassador and Clarkson joined the president of the Saami parliament, Pekka Aikio, at the Saami radio station for a discussion aired on Saami radio and television.

The leaders knew each other from meetings of various international groups, such as the ICC and United Nations Forum for Indigenous Peoples where Saami and Inuit share the same representative.

The importance of the reindeer, said Irniq, reminded him of the importance of the seals in Inuit culture.

But unlike Inuit in Canada, Finnish Saami, whose parliament has only advisory powers, have no rights over their land.

“We would like to have the situation of Canadians,” Aikio said. “It’s fantastic what you have in Nunavut.”

In an interview with the Nunatsiaq News, Tarja Halonen, the president of Finland, said that her government is hesitant to grant some rights to the minority Saami, who number only 7,000 out of more than 150,000 residents in the North. This move would mean denying the same privileges to local residents who have also been reindeer herding for generations.

As it stands now, any citizen of the European Union, to which Finland belongs, has the same rights as a Saami.

“Even the Portuguese can come here to practise reindeer herding,” Aikio said. “I think it’s ridiculous.”

Aikio said he feels the Finnish government is stalling on dealing with the issue of Saami land rights.

“Maybe they’re waiting until we get tired and die out,” Aikio said. “The governments don’t like to speak. We could get rights by giving them the land rights, but legally the Saami have them.”

Simon, who has worked with Aikio for more than 20 years on circumpolar issues, said that is all the more reason for northern peoples to work together.

Clarkson said it was also important for people from the South, the vast majority on the state visit, to see the Saami way of life.

The Siida particularly impressed Clarkson.

Inari’s elegant new $9-million museum, which started as a modest open-air exhibit in the 1960s, was built in 1998 by the Finnish government and the European Union. It doubles as an information centre for the Finnish Park Service.

There’s a modernistic main building as well as an open-air section with old Saami structures such as turf houses, animal traps and food caches.

One exhibit presents the geological, biological, cultural and economic history of the Saami region from the glacial times, through photos and texts in Saami, Finnish, English and German.

Another exhibit is organized around wall-sized murals showing the Saami lands in each season. These lead toward the room’s centre, guiding visitors through the activities Saami practised during each season and talking about the knowledge they used to survive. The Siida also includes a theatre, library, restaurant serving local cuisine and crafts shop.

The museum has more than 46,000 visitors a year.

“I think there should be a museum like that for Inuit,” Clarkson said.