Unearthing Livelihoods: Sámi Trade as an Active Livelihood

Abstract

Many Sámi have been reindeer herders for centuries and their livelihood has usually been understood (solely) in terms of reindeer herding, yet agriculture has also been a typical Sámi livelihood. This chapter investigates trade, another forgotten Sámi livelihood, as portrayed in the journals of two nineteenth-century Nordic clergymen, Jacob Fellman (Finland) and Petrus Læstadius (Sweden). The chapter explores what status Sámi trade had among other livelihoods described in the two journals as well as the practices and functions that Sámi traders carried out in nineteenth-century Arctic and subarctic Europe.

This chapter argues that Sámi trade is a “forgotten livelihood,” a part of Sámi history ignored at the cost of generalizing narratives of the Sámi as nomadic hunter-gatherers and, later, as semi-nomadic reindeer herders. For this reason, studying Sámi trade entails an unearthing of disregarded Sámi history in two ways. First, detaching Sámi livelihoods from a strong connection to land enables us to see livelihoods and practices beyond the limiting stereotype of indigenous peoples as innately attached to the landscape or the environment. Secondly, the chapter pursues the more conventional connotation of the verb “to unearth,” that is, “to discover.” Indicating that the traditional Sámi way of life was no monoculture of reindeer but included many different sources of sustenance paints a more complex, and richer, image of the history of Scandinavia’s arctic and subarctic expanses.

Following these two definitions of unearthing, the chapter explores what status Sámi trade had among other livelihoods described in the journals of two nineteenth-century Nordic clergymen, Jacob Fellman (Finland) and Petrus Læstadius (Sweden). It also lays bare some of the functions that Sámi traders had in nineteenth-century arctic and subarctic Europe. The focus of the chapter is on (1) Sámi trade at the various annual or seasonal fairs that formed the only fully legally sanctioned context and space for trade outside towns and (2) everyday trade practices among the Sámi, and between Sámi and other Nordic individuals.

Methodological Considerations

This chapter aims to diversify the historical imagery of Sámi livelihoods and ways of life. This means avoiding reproduction of the strong, existing stereotypes of Sámi as reindeer herders or being somehow more innately connected to the environment than other Nordic populations. In this regard, the chapter continues the program laid out by the archeologist Ingela Bergman and the ecologist Greger Hörnberg. Bergman and Hörnberg point out that the generally accepted notion of Sámi people mainly being sustained by large-scale reindeer herding is inaccurate. To be sure, many Sámi have been reindeer herders for centuries, yet the repetition of this stereotypical notion silences other histories of Sámi livelihoods and ways of life, such as agriculture or, in the case of this chapter, trade.¹ As Bergman and Hörnberg show, from a historical perspective, agriculture is as typical a Sámi livelihood as reindeer herding. Their article postulates that age-old Sámi agriculture has become a forgotten livelihood, since scholarly and popular narratives of the Swedish and Finnish settlers have presupposed an exclusively nomadic and primitive Sámi presence in the colonized land. The existence of such a narrative in its turn reveals an age-old structure, where the Nordic majority populations have for a long time had the power to define how and in what ways the Sámi are viewed and understood. This chapter challenges earlier popular and scholarly narratives by aiming to bring forth active Sámi history through introducing several Sámi individuals, men and women, practicing different forms of trade. The chapter frames these individuals as agents who made active and conscious choices instead of merely living under circumstances and rules created by others. This is not to deny that there existed and still exist real power structures that benefit Nordic populations other than the Sámi, but rather to offer a more balanced, nuanced, and broad picture of life in the Nordic subarctic and arctic regions in the early nineteenth century.

Trade always entails power structures and an asymmetric distribution of power: “whoever controls the [consumption] circuits, enjoys an exceptionally favorable position,” as historian Daniel Roche reminds us.² In the two cases of trade at fairs and everyday trade, the types of control of the circuit of consumption and trade were rather different. Analysis of the journals of Fellman and Læstadius turns a specific focus toward the roles the two clergymen ascribed to the Sámi at the fairs and in everyday trade practices. From the outset it is clear that Sámi trade was diverse: the roles that Sámi individuals had within the circuits of consumption ranged from consumers to traders and suppliers. When exploring both fair trade and everyday trade practices, the general theoretical framework of this collection adheres to Michel de Certeau’s notion that even the smallest, and at first glance insignificant, practices carry meaning. De Certeau maintains that larger societal structures, such as the circuits of consumption studied in this chapter, are strategically constructed to benefit the powerful. Combining the theory of de Certeau and Roche, those in control of the circuits of consumption define the strategies and the choreography of trade relations and transactions. De Certeau’s crucial addition to this structuralist notion is that individuals within the structures can act tactically, avoiding or subverting the rules, or, so to speak, “playing the system.” By actively using the strategy and the loopholes and inconsistencies in it, individuals and groups can use their own tactics to cope with, circumvent, or even subvert the strategies.³ At fairs, the forms and practices of trade were regulated with certain trading rights, trading times and spaces. The fairs, normally organized in connection with important Church holidays, were in general an important component of the strictly regulated trade in the Swedish and Finnish countryside.⁴ Under these regulations, Sámi traders could still be tactical about their trade. As this chapter reveals, Sámi traders could plan and choose which fairs to trade at, based on their knowledge of favorable points of time and the shortest distance to larger towns and the Swedish capital, Stockholm. In the case of everyday trade practices where trade regulations did not apply, many Sámi commodities had very strong status within the circuits of consumption.

Furthermore, in many instances, the simple everyday trade practices of the Sámi taking place under the radar of what was officially regulated trade turn out upon closer investigation to be conveyances of important commodities. One such case is Fellman’s note on the “fishing Sámi” supplying “shoe-hay” (a natural insulation against freezing temperatures) to the reindeer herders of northernmost Finland and Norway. This seemingly simple commodity was collected and carefully prepared by the fishing Sámi, and then sold to the reindeer herders in exchange for reindeer meat, demonstrating a high degree of specialization and differentiation in both production and supply.⁵

The examination of Jacob Fellman’s and Petrus Læstadius’ depictions of Sámi trade requires excavation of actual trade practices buried beneath a substantial layer of centuries-old stereotypes of Sámi traders as unprofessional and often intoxicated individuals, in a sense stripped of credible agency. On the other hand, these stereotypes become important objects of study in themselves, as prejudices generally abounded around traders from different cultural backgrounds.

Background and Earlier Research

Earlier studies on Sámi trade have in most cases concentrated on the role of traders from the majority cultures, and how these traders established networks and structures that disrupted older patterns of Sámi livelihoods. Swedish historians Gunlög Fur and Daniel Lindmark situate merchants trading with Sámi in a pattern of intensified contacts between Swedes and Sámi (to use modern ethnic terms) beginning in the sixteenth century and intensifying throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.⁶ Besides trade, these intensified contacts also included agricultural colonization, more strictly regulated taxation of the Sámi, and Lutheran missions.

Several studies allocate to the Sámi a more active role as traders than Fur and Lindmark have done. Roger Kvist and Lars-Ivar Hansen show that the yearly mobility of the reindeer-herding Sámi of the mountain areas, following the grazing patterns of their reindeer herds, entailed that they had a crucial role in tying together the North Atlantic and the Baltic spheres of trade.⁷ They traded with Norwegians on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, and when they followed their reindeer herds to the lowlands in Sweden and Finland in the winter, they connected with the tradesmen from the Bothnian coastline. Even if Sámi trade was strictly regulated in the nineteenth century and officially only allowed at fairs, many Sámi commodities such as handicrafts and fish made their way into the trade records of merchants in the towns of the Bothnian coastline, such as Piteå.⁸ These Bothnian tradesmen, in their turn, had frequent connections with Stockholm. This traditional pattern was already shifting in the early nineteenth century, as the different states started regulating and policing their borders more strictly, and reindeer herders could not cross them as freely as before. Maria Lähteenmäki has also commented on the traditional cross-border character of the Sámi areas. Discussing the famous and large Skibotn fair in northernmost Norway that attracted people from around the North Calotte area, Lähteenmäki points out that the trade routes of the Sámi in Finland to this and other fairs were already hundreds of years old by the turn of the nineteenth century.⁹

Most Nordic scholars on Sámi history tend to write Sámi history in nation-state chunks, treating the history of Norwegian, Swedish, or Finnish Sámi and largely ignoring the important cross-border history of the population. As pointed out by Veli-Pekka Lehtola, the Sámi in what is now northernmost Finland traditionally had a yearly cycle of movement and life that was oriented toward the shores of the Arctic Ocean rather than south toward what was to become independent Finland. The fairs of the Norwegian coastline were a paramount part of this yearly cycle. Only after the infrastructure and mental imagery of independent Finland as a unified country reached these areas did age-old patterns start to change and the southern direction become more interesting.¹⁰ The scholarly state of the art still reflects this nationalization of Sámi ways of life, as most studies on the Sámi continue to portray them as a minority population in one of the nation-states they inhabit.¹¹

Between Ethnography, Physiocracy, and Mission: Fellman’s and Læstadius’ Journals

Jacob Fellman and Petrus Læstadius were both clergymen educated in the university towns of Turku (Fellman) and Uppsala (Læstadius). They were typical nineteenth-century Lapland clergymen; like many of their colleagues, they both had ancestors who had served as clerics in the northern areas of Sweden and Finland. Accordingly, their two journals are part of a genre characteristic of nineteenth-century Nordic Lutheran clergymen that blended accounts of missions and religious life with descriptions of the local people and their livelihoods. Judging by the journals, Fellman and Læstadius saw it as one of their main duties to improve God’s creation through ameliorating agriculture, the livelihood they perceived as critical for the national economy. This mix of physiocratic and Lutheran ideas, dubbed “the Godly economy” by the historian Tore Frängsmyr, was widespread among the Nordic clergy in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.¹² Fellman and Læstadius, however, made an important exception for the large-scale reindeer herding practiced by the Sámi. Their notion of reindeer herding as the most sustainable livelihood in the mountainous areas unsuitable for cereal cultivation deviated from the general argument highlighting the primacy of agriculture among other livelihoods.¹³ Fellman’s and Læstadius’ journals show great and detailed knowledge and expertise regarding the various Sámi livelihoods. The authors were well acquainted with the geographical, social, and economic circumstances of the Sámi areas. Differently from most people traveling in northern Fennoscandia in the nineteenth century and writing descriptions of the Sámi, Fellman and Læstadius lived and worked in the area for years, forming relationships with the locals and familiarizing themselves with the environment. Læstadius was himself partly of Sámi origin, a fact he openly discusses in his journal although generally distancing himself from the Sámi populations.¹⁴

Læstadius’ journal (first published in 1831) is rather directly related to his activities as a missionary in the Sámi areas. In addition to surveying the religious life of the Sámi, the journal includes depictions of the nature and livelihoods of his area of activity. Fellman’s texts resemble more a traditional journal, written as a record of his daily life. Fellman also observed the plants and animals of his parish: he was an enthusiastic botanist, and the journal includes one of the first catalogues of the flora of northernmost Finland. Helsingfors Tidningar, a Helsinki-based semiweekly, published the first part of Fellman’s journal in 1830. Jacob’s son Isak Fellman edited and published the whole journal in 1906.¹⁵

Læstadius’ and Fellman’s reports of the Sámi traders attending the fairs are often quite impressionistic, highlighting the “exotic behavior” that the two men observed during the fairs. It is both relevant and difficult to discover actual trade practices in these descriptions, ranging from the modality of parody (comparing the Sámi to Classical Roman literary figures) to exotifying and judgmental comments. This aligns well with Seppo Knuuttila’s studies on how elites depicted common people, and especially minorities. Lacking alternative means to cope with the otherness of minorities in literary terms, educated elites often used the trope of classic literature, for instance, to describe the “strangeness” and “alienness” of the people described.¹⁶

When studying the journals’ accounts of everyday practices of trade, the difficulty lies in detecting the short and seemingly insignificant text passages on Sámi trade both within the Sámi community and with other populations. Whereas descriptions of Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian merchants run over several pages, the everyday trade practices of the Sámi are treated rather nonchalantly, often as evidence of the fact that the Sámi had to resort to trade when their actual way of life (e.g., reindeer herding or fishing) was not strong enough or healthy enough to sustain them.

Fairs and Everyday Trade Practices Among the Sámi

The fairs (North Sámi: márkan) in the Sámi area traditionally had a close connection with Church holidays. Large gatherings in central church villages during important holidays meant a great opportunity for trade, and combining different social events was reasonable given the vast distances that some Sámi individuals had to travel to reach the nearest church village (see Fig. 2.1). The connection between Christianity and trade is epitomized in the place name of the first church built in the Eanodat-Gárasavvon area on the northernmost Swedish-Finnish border. Constructed in the early seventeenth century, the church was simply called Márkan—both “church village” and “the Fair.” During important Church holidays, local Sámi and other locals would gather around the church to attend services but also—in many cases more importantly—to participate in the fair with its trade and social practices. The name Márkan is an unusually straightforward indication of the close connection between the practices of churchgoing and trade in the Sámi areas in particular and in Europe in general. In all parts of the Swedish (and later also Finnish) Sámi areas, churches emerged in places that the Sámi had earlier used as more or less sedentary winter villages. Márkan was also a typical location for church and fair activities, since, according to oral tradition, it was used as a sieidi (traditional Sámi sacred place) possibly long before the arrival of Christianity in this area.¹⁷ Combining mission work with trade, these places became some of the most important arenas of cultural contacts between the Sámi and other Nordic populations.¹⁸ Both Fellman and Læstadius include lengthy descriptions of the spectacle of the fair, in all its social, ecclesial, and trade-related activity. Fellman describes the fair in Inari, whereas Læstadius includes accounts of several fairs at different locations in the Swedish Sámi areas.

Fig. 2.1

String of reindeer on its way to the market in the northernmost part of Finland in the 1920s. (Photo by Juhani Ahola. The Finnish Heritage Agency)

Only to later depart from the stereotypes attached to Sámi at the fairs, I will begin with what I judge to be the most heavily biased account, Petrus Læstadius’ farce-like sequence on the Sámi at the last day of the fair of Arjeplog, where he makes intertextual references to classic Greco-Roman mythology. According to Læstadius, on this final day many Sámi spent on alcohol most of what they had earned earlier at the fair. The “Saturnalian” scenes of drunken friendship and love among the Sámi were occasionally interrupted by more aggressive acts of quarreling and fighting, as if the god Aeolus had broken an opening in the cliff for the winds. Here Læstadius paraphrases Virgil’s account of Aeolus, King of the Winds, in the first book of the Aeneid.¹⁹ The drunken aggression of the Sámi was let out like the winds that Aeolus set free at the behest of the goddess Juno, almost destroying the fleet of Aeneas en route to Italy. Adding to the impressionistic confusion of the scene, Læstadius gives no other clues to the readers as to why he compared the Sámi in Arjeplog to the Trojans on the Mediterranean. As discussed by Seppo Knuuttila, however, using classic literature as a model to describe the Other, whether common people or minorities, has been a traditional literary trope in European majority depictions of common people and minority populations.²⁰

Læstadius’ bizarre and farce-like depiction in any case offers a picture of the Sámi as individuals without any larger capacity of rational planning—they sold all their goods only to spend the money on drinks on the final day of the fair. The widespread alcohol consumption in northern Scandinavia has been documented by many others than Petrus Læstadius, and it was typical for journals and periodicals to highlight drinking and other morally questionable behavior at the fairs. Drinking was also something that the lay (yet intra-church) religious movement established by Petrus’ brother Lars Levi Læstadius forcefully turned against. Nevertheless, Petrus Læstadius’ description of the Sámi at the last day of the Arjeplog fair is hardly an appropriate account of their actual transactions and practices. On the other hand, selling goods only to afford drinks when enjoying a rare social occasion, meeting with family, relatives, and friends, can also be interpreted as highly intentional and rational behavior, rather than a result of drunken stupor and fervor. This interpretation is supported by the work of Jouko Heinonen, who has studied fairs in the southern Finnish province of Päijät-Häme in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Heinonen postulates that the fairs have always had as much a function of amusement than trade. Alcohol has been an integral part of the culture of the fairs also elsewhere than in the Sámi areas. Moreover, moralizing depictions of the alcohol use of fairgoers are not specific to the Sámi context.²¹

Læstadius painted a more sober picture of Sámi behavior in his depictions of the fairs in Åsele and Arvidsjaur. Læstadius divided fair commodities into two categories: lantmannavaror (farmers’ goods) and lappmannavaror (Sámi goods). The most important article among the Sámi goods was reindeer skins. According to Læstadius, the Åsele fair was an economically productive fair for the Sámi, as it was frequented by merchants who immediately after the market continued to Stockholm to sell the goods. The supply of Sámi goods was still scarce in the capital, as the Åsele fair was held early in the season, in early January; thus, the Sámi received the best price for their reindeer skins and other Sámi goods at this fair.²² This is also in line with Kvist’s and Hansen’s conclusions that Sámi traders had a rather independent position and traded, through proxies if not otherwise, with both Stockholm merchants and Arctic Ocean merchants.

Jacob Fellman’s accounts of fair practices are more neutral in tone and style, compared to Læstadius’ narrative embellished with parody and intertextual references to classical literature. Recounting his first visit to the Inari fair held at Christmas, Fellman still makes the point that drinking was a problem. Everything passed in a good manner, according to Fellman, apart from the drinking, which was “excessive.” Fellman’s account also confirms that northern Scandinavia, Finland, and northwestern Russia in the early nineteenth century were still very much a part of the trade sphere of the Arctic Ocean coastline. Participants at the Inari fair, Fellman describes, included “Russians from Kola, Russian and Norwegian Lapps, liquor traders from Sodankylä, Kemijärvi and Enontekiö as well as Norwegians from the Varangerfjord [a close-by inlet of the Arctic Ocean].”²³

Fellman wrote a longer account of the fair in Inari upon his next visit to that event, during his second year in Lapland. The days were short, and the nights were long, with “20 hours of night and 4 hours of twilight.”²⁴ Nevertheless, the transactions were busy. Fellman mentions that a few merchants from the town of Tornio at the far end of the Gulf of Bothnia had arrived at the fair. Of all the townspeople, the Tornio merchants had the exclusive right of trade at the fair, but they did not show up every year. The Tornio merchants brought with them, for instance, lead, gunpowder, hemp, rope, and kettles. These were traded with the Sámi for reindeer skins, as well as other skins and furs and dried fish, which the Sámi had caught, among other places, in the Arctic Ocean. Like Læstadius’ account, Fellman’s notes of the Inari fair also confirm the intermediary role that the Sámi had in connecting the Baltic and the Arctic Ocean trade spheres.

Fellman commented briefly on the fair transactions between the reindeer-herding Sámi from Utsjoki in Finland and Finnmark in Norway: these reindeer herders stayed with local Sámi in Inari during the fair. For this hospitality, combined with shoe-hay and cloudberries from the Inari Sámi, the reindeer herders paid “several loads of reindeer meat,” which the Inari Sámi received after the fair when the Church holidays were over.²⁵ Shoe-hay may seem like a petty commodity at first sight, but in light of de Certeau’s framework highlighting the importance of even the most seemingly trivial and insignificant practices, its production demonstrates a high degree of specialization among the Inari Sámi. This natural insulation against freezing and potentially fatal temperatures was crucial for the reindeer herders of Utsjoki and Finnmark. In a passage where Fellman describes Sámi clothing, he elaborates on the practices of producing shoe-hay. Fellman noted that the fishermen of Inari could gain a whole reindeer (for food) in exchange for “one or a couple of tufts of this hay.” The production of shoe-hay was a highly specialized process. The raw material was a specific species of sedge, the bladder sedge (Carex vesicaria), that was collected in August, then bundled and beaten until it “disintegrated into fine threads, like hemp or flax.” The shoe-hay bundles were then stored away for the winter season. A bundle of hay in the shoe was much warmer than even several layers of socks, and it could be dried and reused up to eight times (see Fig. 2.2).²⁶

Fig. 2.2

An Inari Sámi boy making shoe-hay in 1925. Shoe-hay processing and dog breeding were important Inari Sámi livelihoods, and children would sometimes participate in the crafting of shoe-hay. (Photo by Samuli Paulaharju. The Finnish Heritage Agency)

Fellman’s description of the practices of shoe-hay production, from collecting bladder sedge to selling it to the reindeer-herding Sámi, suggests the existence of a high level of expertise and specialization behind a seemingly trivial commodity. The quality of Sámi shoe-hay was such that the 1910–1913 British Antarctic Expedition (the Terra Nova Expedition) included in their equipment “Lapp shoes,” which were stuffed with hay for insulation.²⁷ Although stricto sensu outside of the scope of the current chapter, this example further confirms the high level of differentiation and technology that the shoe-hay making of the Sámi showcased, as well as the fact that the technology, use, and trade value of this specific commodity was also known to outsiders, not only the Sámi.

Another example of an intra-Sámi trade practice and specialization that Fellman mentions is the selling of herding dogs. Being more sedentary than the nomadic reindeer herders, the fishing Sámi bred, trained, and sold dogs to the reindeer herders for a substantial income. A dog pup was worth a slaktren (a reindeer to be butchered for consumption rather than kept alive for a long time) and a trained dog sold for even more, depending on its skills in herding.²⁸ Again, the investment in time and resources needed to breed dogs that were specifically trained for reindeer herding shows that the Sámi trade practices were complex, highly specialized, and demonstrated apparent differentiation and optimization of skills, trade, and economic practices. This trade between the different Sámi groups was, of course, a part of larger circuits of consumption in northernmost Finland and Scandinavia, where Sámi reindeer skins played an important role. As reindeer skins were arguably the most important Sámi commodities, the breeding of herding dogs and providing shoe-hay for managing the herds in freezing temperatures were crucial auxiliary functions to this trade. If not in control of the whole circuit of consumption in Roche’s terms, the Sámi reindeer herders as well as the Sámi individuals providing them with necessities for their livelihood nevertheless had a firm grip on that specific part of the circuit of consumption.

Not all trade practices that occurred outside of the fairs took place in an intra-Sámi setting, however. Læstadius briefly mentions reindeer cheese being traded by the reindeer-herding mountain Sámi of Sweden when they visited Norway during the summer. In exchange for the cheese, they acquired woolen and sheepskin blankets from Norwegian farmers.²⁹ It is, once again evident that the Sámi possessed goods that were in demand among the majority populations.

The Arctic Ocean fishing of the Inari Sámi is another example of differentiation of trade and everyday practices noted in Fellman’s journal. Lake Inari and surrounding smaller bodies of water provided the Sámi of the area with fish for everyday consumption, but this local practice of fishing did not generate any substantial surplus. For this reason, the Inari Sámi complemented their economy with fishing in the Arctic Ocean during the spring and the summer. This may have constituted a problem, given that juridically speaking, the Inari Sámi came from across the Finnish border and exploited the resources of a foreign country, Norway. However, as Fellman notes, the Inari Sámi paid tax on their Arctic Ocean fish at the same rate as the Norwegians did, based on an old agreement preceding the contemporaneous state borders in the area. This reflects the traditional reality of mobility and trade of the Sámi, where the area up to a few hundred kilometers south of the Arctic Ocean coastline formed a natural area for reindeer herding, trade, and mobility. Only when the borders of the modern nation states became controlled and policed more closely did these age-old patterns of mobility start to change, making it more difficult for the Sámi to carry out and develop their traditional livelihoods.

Fellman’s journal includes yet other instances of everyday trade that are mentioned only in passing but nevertheless support the argument of Sámi trade as an active and independent livelihood. For instance, pearl fishing was a seasonal livelihood for some Inari Sámi. Fellman mentions that the rivers of Inari and Lutto were exploited for this purpose, and he also speaks of handicrafts, and especially sleighs drawn by reindeer, as items that the Inari Sámi sold to the reindeer herders.³⁰ An interesting example of a Sámi tradeswoman is Anna Aikio, introduced in Fellman’s journal. After Aikio’s spouse passed away, she made a living by breeding foxes and selling the furs at the fair in Inari.³¹ This again highlights the role of Sámi trade as an active livelihood and that this livelihood was at least at times also available to women .

Conclusions

This chapter studies Sámi trade as an active livelihood rather than a side story or a “last resort” when other livelihoods had failed. As pointed out by Bergman and Hörnberg, bringing forward other Sámi livelihoods than the conventionally highlighted Sámi reindeer herding helps us see and frame the Sámi livelihoods and economy in a more diverse and accurate light.³² Based on the journals of the two nineteenth-century Lutheran clergymen Petrus Læstadius and Jacob Fellman, this chapter demonstrates several instances of trade as a livelihood that was chosen deliberately as a source of income. The specialization of both production and commerce is one indication of such activity. The highly specialized livelihoods of shoe-hay production and breeding of herding dogs among the Sámi of the Inari area in Finland, and the selling and trading of these goods with other Sámi groups, clearly illuminate the various ways in which the Sámi could make a living through trade. Other examples include the making of reindeer cheese, which the Swedish Sámi sold to Norwegian farmers in exchange for wool and sheep blankets. The fishermen of the Lake Inari area also practiced seasonal fishing in the Arctic Ocean, generating a surplus that was difficult to obtain through lake fishing alone. All these cases go to show that trade was indeed an active livelihood. On top of that, trade was also an independent livelihood, and not always a mere auxiliary of other livelihoods. Sámi individuals trading at the various fairs in the Sámi area were often tactical about their choices, to use the wording of Michel de Certeau; when their trade rights were heavily restricted by laws and regulations concentrating on legal trade at the fairs, the Sámi could, for instance, choose which fairs to attend and sell their goods at. As an elucidating example, attending the fair in Åsele was beneficial to Sámi traders since the fair took place early in the season, and the demand for Sámi goods, most importantly reindeer skin, was still high; the supply was low compared to later points of time, when several other fairs took place. The location of Åsele was also favorable, as it was one of the southernmost marketplaces in the Sámi area, and for this reason accessible to merchants practicing trade in Stockholm.

The Sámi traders played a crucial role in tying together the trade spheres of the Arctic Ocean and the Baltic Sea, as Kvist and Hansen have demonstrated.³³ This is confirmed by the chapter at hand. The integration of the two markets also connects the findings to Daniel Roche’s notion of the power involved in controlling the circuits of consumption. While the Sámi traders were in many instances subordinate to the merchants of the majority populations that had legally better rights at the fairs, their crucial role in connecting the Baltic and Arctic Ocean trade spheres gave them a strong and secure position within trade in the whole northern Nordic area.

The findings of this chapter entail an unearthing of Sámi livelihoods in two ways, as outlined in the introduction of this chapter. On the one hand, the mere action of discovering, discussing, studying, and presenting Sámi livelihoods that are not directly connected to reindeer herding broadens our conception of Sámi livelihoods and life. This broadening of perspective is necessary, since both popular and scholarly narratives of Sámi life historically and today often presuppose a strong connection between Sámi individuals and reindeer herding. On the other hand, unearthing also means disconnecting the Sámi from a stereotypical connection to nature or the environment. To avoid walking into old pitfalls of othering and exotifying, we should not label the livelihoods and lifestyles of indigenous populations a priori as essentially different from those of the so-called industrialized, modern or Western world. Conceptually detaching indigenous peoples from an axiomatic relationship to nature is a step in the right direction in this regard. Through showing that the Sámi were as active and skillful traders as any other Nordic tradesmen, this chapter goes toward understanding the Sámi as not essentially different from other Nordic populations, but as individuals and groups having access to various kinds of livelihoods that partly overlapped with those of the other Nordic populations.