The Sámi People

The Sámi people are the indigenous people of Lapland, famous for reindeer herding.

We offer the chance to visit a Sámi family and their reindeer in the wilderness on your trip to Lapland.

Lapland spans a great area across northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. Consequently, several different groups of Sámi people exist; they often speak different dialects.

Forest Sámi

Most of the Swedish and Finnish Sámi are Forest Sámi, who live in coniferous forests, where they fish and hunt.

Family groups of 10 to 100 people live in Lappish villages, normally by a river, with watersheds acting as natural borders between villages. Reindeer are used for transportation and furs.

Fjeld Sámi

The Fjeld Sámi are also known as "reindeer Sámi" because the reindeer is the most important part of their economy. The Sámi language has more than 400 terms for reindeer – according to gender, age, color, and shape.

A "fjeld" is a treeless mountain, and these Sámi live on the fjelds and the highlands between Sweden and Norway, where they tend their herds and lead a nomadic lifestyle.

Sea Sámi

The first historical record of the Sea Sámi living by the Arctic Sea in Northern Norway was a remark made in AD 892 by a Norwegian tribal chief. He referred to the people who hunted in the winter and fished on the sea in the summer, living a half-nomadic life.

Kola Peninsula Sámi

Nearly 2,000 Sámi live on the Kola Peninsula, and this number has remained largely the same through the ages. They live by fishing and tending reindeer.