Sámi

Via the European Route 6 (E6) we drive along the border river between Finland and Norway, the Kárášjohka, to the main settlement areas of the Sami people in Norway. Ice floes are still drifting on the raging river and mountains of ice and snow are piling up meters high on its banks.

We stay overnight in the town of Karasjok, the seat of the Sami Parliament Sameting. Here the Kárášjohka flows leisurely through the small town before it becomes the sometimes raging border river in the narrower passages between Norway and Finland.

One of the highest concentrations of archaeological sites in the Nordic countries is at Ceavccageađge (Mortensnes in Norwegian) in Varanger. Ten thousand years as a meeting place for hunters, fishermen and traders have left traces of settlements in the landscape, some monumental but many often small and easily overlooked. A cairn is not always just a cairn.