* *
*Voice of the River*
* *
I was there when the mountains rose -
- when the land folded and
the lava hardened.
I know well the anguish and
yearning of matter -
- but deep inside me,
far from the lovely glittering surface -
there is a great darkness of wisdom.
Dreams float through me.
First came the plants and then the
creatures.
I quenched their thirst, gave them life.
I have given life to many.
The first humans I saw were nomads.
I listened to their song and their
laughter, travelling with their reindeer.
Those who followed were different,
they came to stay.
There was force about them,
even violence -
- as though life was about winning,
conquering, defeating.
Yet they were brave and very skilful
steering their boats -
- riding my back.
In the springtime when the ice melted
they filled me with timber.
The logs danced about in my rapids
But you can easily slip on dancing logs.
Sometimes a man would lose
his foothold and fall -
- but manage to get up again.
There were others
who never came upagain.
Those I embraced and took them
to my secret springs -
- deep under the water.
Those were the days when I was still
free, when I still had all my powers.
* *
*Kerstin Omma*
* *
I have no longer any feeling for this
river.
It's just water that comes and goes.
Like a bathtub,
sometimes it's filled to the brim -
- and then you pull the plug
and it's empty.
For me, the water here -
- is no longer alive.
When I was a child, my parents made
their living mainly through fishing.
So in spring we would move up
along the lake system to fish.
When I grew up we had to learn all
about Sweden, of course.
Religion, Swedish geography.
The rivers down south,
streams I'd call them -
- we had to learn by heart
but the rivers up here -
- we didn't know much about.
* *
*Mats Lund:*
* *
I practically left school 1964 in
year 8 -
- and spent the last year
with dad in the forest.
In those days they used to come and
get you if you didn't go to school, -
- but they never did that with me.
I went there for breaking-up -
- and Christmas assemblies.
When the teachers asked:
"What do you do when you aren't in school?"
I said: "I work in the forest."
So I never lied, I told it like it was.
How old were you when you drove
in the forest for the first time?
I was twelve, and the boy
who helped me was nine.
The other night she phoned me
at seven in the evening.
"When are you coming home?"
"I'll just do one more round" I said, -
- but I think it was half past one
that night when I came home.
(That was so bloody funny ...)
I had such a bloody good time...
But if that's to work,
the way we go on -
- you really need a woman
who understands you.
Because it has happened...
I had three excavators once.
It happened that I left
on a Monday morning -
- to see how the lads
were getting on -
- and I didn't come back
before Thursday.
And there were no mobile phones then,
so she didn't know where I was.
It was so much fun out there,
so I helped them dig for a few days.
* *
*Eva-Stina Sandling*
* *
That river was something special
when it was still alive.
We played there, we were always
by it or on it somehow.
It's always been there
and I used to hear the rapids.
You could hear the rapids up here.
Sometimes I miss that.
Now there is a little stream over there.
When it gets going in the spring,
you can hear it.
But some older men say they could
tell the weather -
- from the rapids.
"Now it's going to change -
- now we'll get this or that..."
It must have been something to do
with humidity or air pressure.
That the rapids could forecast changes.
The sound of those rapids, well ...
The so called rapids we hear now, -
- that's those cables that drop
very low at one point.
When they get moist they start
rumbling.
It's like a greeting from the electricity -
- imprisoned in those cables.
The river used to be so dependable.
It was used as a trail, -
- the Sami travelled along the river.
I still remember the reindeer herds
arriving -
- like a black moving wave.
The Sami came up for a cup of coffee, -
- so the reindeer had to wait for a
couple of hours. And then they went on.
* *
*Per Olof Kuhmunen / Thorbjörn Edman*
* *
It's been said that the Sami put salt
in their coffee in the old days.
And did they?
Well, perhaps when they used
snow water which is distilled.
With a little salt the water
became normal.
I see.
That's how it was.
And that's been a good tale
for so many years!
And everybody believed they put salt in
because they liked salty coffee.
But reindeer owners
aren't stupid either!
Porsi means fors/rapids.
And Murjek is Sami for berries.
Jokkmokk is a sort of stream,
so you get Mokkina.
That means pub-crawl.
Drinking-bout, a round.
Jokkmokk?
Jokko, that's drink,
and mokk is a bend, a turn.
So pub-crawl is the free translation.
And does it live up to it?
* *
*The River*
* *
I throw myself about, I plunge down.
sometimes you need to be free -
- but I have been stemmed and
almost reduced to silence.
Only around me, in my tributaries, is
there still the song of freedom.
I call them my children, the rushing
wild waters which unite with me.
They know about yearning and revolting,
about refusing to be captured.
They rush towards a future that I believe
will make many of us break our chains.
* *
*Uno Wiklund*
* *
How old was I? Thirteen.
I just took the saw and went to
the forest to support myself.
That was in winter, of course, in
the summer I got into floating.
Yes, I was a "lecherous logger"
in those days!
We were a whole gang of boys
who got into floating -
- and were together
for many many years.
After all, there was nothing
but the forest.
You could be a lumberjack or,
in the summer, a log-driver.
There was this log-hook.
A hook with which you fastened the timber.
They would just put a handle on one
and say :"Here you are."
Then you had to learn everything
on your own.
Which we did.
I mean, we ran over the floats.
no boat needed, we ran on the logs.
That was fine -
- when you were a boy,
not so heavy either.
Today one would go under, I reckon.
We went out in the first morning light -
- at seven or even six, -
- and didn't stop before dark.
From dark to dark.
We were a close-knit gang there
for many, many years.
I went to see them ...
in the Kvikkjokk church-yard.
That's where they were, all dead.
I'm the only one left.
* *
*The River*
* *
Man has two souls.
One is in our body,
in our skin and our heart, -
- and it whispers about
what is nearest to us.
The other is the free soul, sister of
haze and clouds.
That soul can lift,
float through the air and fly away -
- to the most wondrous places.
It has no limits,
and all is now.
In the quiet light summer nights -
- I sometimes heard music far away.
I knew then that men and women
were feasting.
Words then did not mean so much -
- but with their hands
they made each other real.
Then children were born.
And work took over again.
* *
*Johannes Omma*
* *
You weren't old when you started.
Twelve or thirteen.
Then you walked, on skis.
Originally they travelled with reindeer
sleighs, even when I was a kid.
And in the spring, in April,
the families moved here.
You could hear the reindeers' hooves
clicking and the skis scraping the snow.
* *
*Kerstin Omma*
* *
There isn't so much activity now.
they walk carefully and look out
for their reindeer marks.
And they help each other, too.
You can hear them shouting -
- and lassoing for each other.
That's what makes
reindeer keepers such a -
- close community,
both young and old.
* *
*Helena Omma*
* *
Well, there isn't anything to lasso at
the moment, most are branded.
When you see an unbranded calf and it
runs away, you may not find it again.
* *
*Kerstin Omma*
* *
Here in our Sami village of Sör-Kaitum
we do have young people -
- who go in for this
and believe in it.
Even some girls are
interested in continuing -
- this traditional industry which
their parents -
- have worked with
and earlier generations, too.
* *
*The River*
* *
It is strange that people don't realise
that we see them.
Trees and mountains see them, animals
see them and turn away.
We are patient.
We wait for them to understand
that they are a part of the whole.
Our equals.
But they have so little time, -
They stock their barns and they
harvest, summer after summer.
And still only a few have plenty -
- and the others have almost nothing.
Man has an arrogance
which borders on cruelty.
They think theirs is all the power.
But what they
did to Áiliguojka I shall not forget.
Never. That was my most
beautiful place.
Áiliguojka.
The sacred fall.
* *
*Uno Wiklund*
* *
I shall tell you something.
When those project people came here
for the first time -
- they asked me
"Who is the village elder here?"
"That would be me," I said,
and since I was young then -
- they looked at me sceptically, of course.
There was this engineer, he was young.
He spit on the courtyard and said:
"But this can't be worth
anything, can it?"
And you must know that people have
been working here for 300 years.
I was the only one who went to court.
Everybody else took what Vattenfall offered.
So the water-rights compensation
for the Akka power station -
- didn't cost
the company anything, I'd say.
The generation who suffered then are
now dead.
Or else they went to America.
Then they settled up, but there wasn't
really a case to settle, when all were dead.
Nobody could defend themselves.
* *
*Eva-Stina Sandling*
* *
The first thing my sister and I and the
children playing along the edge noticed -
- were the sticks. Men came and
put sticks in the ground, -
- areas were measured,
height of fall, barrages.
So I felt that someone was -
- taking something away
from us, claiming our land.
And now ... oh, I know the feeling -
- of being colonised, of living -
- under a colonial power
that comes and gnaws away ...
it's under your skin, somehow.
* *
*Astrid Sandling*
* *
Fire is the best company you can have.
Can't you hear it talking?
* *
*Eva-Stina Sandling*
* *
I remember that some men here at the river
broke those sticks and threw them away.
"Wow," we thought.
So you see there was strong suspicion of -
- all the promises
one heard from Vattenfall.
* *
*Astrid Sandling*
* *
I don't think it was worst for me,
rather for my husband.
He just hated everything
to do with Vattenfall.
He fought on like a warrior.
But in the end you just had to come to
terms with reality, it just happened.
* *
*The River*
* *
I feel the smoke going past.
So many fires have been lit along my shores.
There were so many words
of grief and fury.
Sometimes on late August nights
I get calm -
- the wind rocks me.
Then I become a glittering breath of light,
of warmth and the sweet scent of myrtle.
I have heard the clouds
murmur of a time to come -
- without sorrow,
without deceit.
But they always move on
and leave me behind.
* *
*Hans Zackrisson*
* *
My parents were not married -
only engaged, and the engagement broke up.
And in these parts, you know -
- that means you are a bastard, a nobody.
Of course it's much easier to start -
- in the forest if you have an experienced father -
- who can teach you the ropes.
But I didn't, so I had a rough time.
But later, I have to say,
I got a really good job, -
- and things have never been better
for me than now, as I see it.
OK, there is the arthritis, an
operation here and an operation there, -
- but apart from that: fine!
* *
*Arne Wiklund*
* *
I have worked on the river
from Messaure to Luleå -
(I was eleven)
- for eleven summers and I've never
had a better job.
Out in the open and good work mates.
The weather wasn't always good,
but most of the time it was.
How did you learn blasting? Isn't it all
about how much dynamite you put in?
When you saw the logs lying
crosswise you set the dynamite -
- towards the bottom, in several
places -
- and you ignited at the far end,
but you used shorter and shorter fuses.
So the first blast came at the near
end and lifted them over the rocks, -
- then the next, lifting
them all the time.
Once I went blasting with a foreman,
supposed to be an expert.
We were to do some blasting down
at the Vittjärv power station, -
- so we drove out to the log jam.
I loaded at the near end and shouted:
"I'm ready, let's fire!" -
- but he at the far end had already
done that. He was so nervous -
- and when we were
50 metres away his blast goes off.
Such bits of timber came
down along the boat!
I was furious when we reached land,
and the boss was white as ghost.
He had seen the blast with
us only 50 metres away.
Once I blasted a log jam
from a helicopter.
I had to climb down on a rope-ladder
and that moves about like this.
And when you'd ignited, you were
a bit anxious for the helicopter to come in time.
No regulation that you had to
know anything about blasting.
So I loaded and ignited and signalled
for him to come.
And I climbed up the swaying rope-
ladder and the pilot was frightened -
- so you were 30 bloody metres up
in the air before you got on board.
And there was a guy with a knife to cut
off the rope-ladder in case it got stuck.
* *
*The River*
* *
In the autumn the lakes are like
eyes looking into space.
They search for signs and revelations.
The sun is the greatest artist.
It paints the clouds so beautifully
that I want to halt them, -
- embrace them, draw them down
into my mild, streaming darkness.
What happens when a
river and a cloud meet?
Sometimes even a river wants to play,
forget its direction -
- its knowledge, -
- while the arch of the bridge
tells of eternity -
- and someone is on the way home
in the last light of the evening.
Here they grew their crops
and built their homes.
There are traces everywhere
of those who left.
Did they find a better life?
Do they still remember how I sang
to them when darkness fell?
* *
*Mats Lund / Arne Wiklund.*
* *
We are no city folk.
Take that little town, Boden.
When you see the first buildings
by the waste dump you get nervous -
- and would rather
turn the car round and go back home.
Many say: "How the hell can you
live like that, so remote?"
My answer is that I have more
company than those in town.
Here we see each other in
the evening, we just visit, -
- no need to phone or be invited or so.
You come as you are.
I'll give you an example: last week
a hunting friend phoned and said:
"Can't we come round and
chop your firewood?"
I said: "What have you run
your head against this time?"
We don't have much to do. So now
I have three pensioners at home chopping my firewood.
Just like that.
Although they live 12 miles
from where I live.
But on Friday -
- they had to leave early because they
were going to pensioners' work-out.
* *
*Zara Hallman*
* *
The forests are getting used up.
They fight for the lasts sticks instead
of admitting publicly what is happening.
They don't want the Swedish people to
know that mature forest is vanishing.
Everywhere here there is now such
terribly intensive felling, -
- that every little grove is precious.
And this used to be a whole
mountain full of trees, -
- the last complete mountain.
* *
*Anna Hallman*
* *
What you want is forest, of course,
not just tree plantations.
That's not really proper forest.
* *
*Zara Hallman*
* *
Well, to start with we hadn't planned
to demonstrate or block machines.
Instead we were negotiating with Svea Skog,
so that more villages in the woods -
- should have the right to preserve forest
that was important to them, special forest.
It was our dream that other villages
should also have that possibility.
Everybody should have the right-
-to enjoy the beauty that is forest.
This beauty, which is so important
to man, and which is getting lost.
When you walk in a forest like this
you become happy and glad -
- to be able to see
and experience such a forest.
And to feel it.
* *
*Anna Hallman*
* *
I want forest around me -
- for me that is the nature -
- calm and silence.
Life, I'd like to call it.
* *
*TV-reporter*
* *
The disputed tree-felling near the
village of Valvträsk in Norrbotten -
- was stopped this morning.
* *
*Zara Hallman/Anna Hallman*
* *
We stood there for three hours before
they appeared.
And then they came up this path,
a great motorcade -
- with trucks, trailers
and all the machines.
With enormous floodlights,
the whole forest was lit up.
The ground was shaking when the
machines came, just trembling.
We felt quite small then.
We stood there ready for them
every morning at four -
- when they started the machines
on the path here.
For two weeks.
I think we could have gone on longer,
if they'd let us.
If they hadn't taken us away with force.
They came out and said: "You have -
- half an hour to
pack your stuff and leave."
I didn't want to leave,
so they had to drag me away, -
- one policeman on each arm.
It was like...
They wanted to show us that they
had the power and we had no say at all.
That's how I remember it.
It didn't matter what anybody said.
"I have decided and that is -
- how it is going to be"
* *
*The River*
* *
I like those who speak their mind.
But they were too few.
I believe there will be more.
* *
*Kurt Fredriksson*
* *
I had worked for Svea Skog for 24 years -
and then they called the office and we
were given notice in a matter of two minutes.
"Thank you for your time with us."
"Good work."
Of course one was furious, inevitably.
And bloody disappointed.
I don't know how to say this but...
In big decisions the humble worker
has no say in the end.
That's how it is, quite simply.
For 15 years now we have pointed out -
- that one can't fell at this rate.
There isn't enough forest.
But you try and tell that
to an academic these days.
"What are you talking about."
Deep inside they know, of course,
that you can't fell at this rate.
But these are companies.
Shareholders want to
see money, so they just fell -
- and look confident.
And that I really hadn't reckoned with -
- to bloody move away from here
at 42 years of age.
This is where I grew up
and here I will stay.
* *
*Eva-Stina Sandling*
* *
I think it gets steadier like this.
That's how they do timbered walls.
It's fun, I like birch wood,
it's good to work with.
I think you have to ask permission
before you take it.
I like it to be a little lopsided,
I don't want it to be quite straight.
If I hadn't grown up by this river
and always been so near to it, -
- I would never have told stories
and used words -
- the way I have done all my life,
I am sure of that.
It does have a voice, and
it has taught me a lot.
Sometimes I feel as though the
river is a part of myself.
Perhaps because water has such an
important role in the cycle of nature, -
- all the drops leaving and coming back.
All that water means to man,
to the human body, to the universe.
Sometimes I feel that the river
somehow flows through me.
Many people depend on the forest,
have bought big machines and incurred debts.
Now they have to drive them
day and night to break even.
And to say something that
puts their income at risk, -
- to express a different opinion.
That takes a lot of courage.
* *
*Mats Lund*
* *
Hello there!
I wouldn't say that things go well,
no one would ever admit that.
It works out, we survive.
We make a living out of it.
That's the main thing.
And we support many other people.
* *
*Children*
* *
All the raindeers are gone.
Are all the raindeers dead?
* *
*Helena Omma*
* *
Yes, we have slaughtered them all.
Your landscape is ravaged, roads cleave
you like wounds which will never heal.
Your small lakes and streams
have become a vast sea.
The sound of car engines
and motor-scooters -
- is as common as birds' chirping
in your world.
Nature is no longer allowed
to have its course in peace.
And yet I can sense past ages
beyond the mountains, -
- can hear our forefathers' easy
steps on forgotten paths, -
- can feel the smell of smoke
rising from their homes.
I roam among the same mountains,
under the same sky as they did.
With you I feel secure.
Sometimes very little is enough to remind us
that we are just human beings on this earth.
Creatures like all the others,
not more nor less.
They tell me how very beautiful it
was before they built the dams, -
- but I have never seen anything but
this, so I think it's beautiful anyway.
My parents may think that it has
become a huge lake, all this.
But this sight has become such a
deep-rooted image that, -
- if I shut my eyes back in
Gällivare, I can still see it, -
- know exactly what it looks like.
There is so much that is beautiful in
this world but -
- you can't compare it,
because this is my home, after all.
It is the most beautiful place on earth.
I don't think I'll ever change my mind.
* *
*The River*
* *
Now comes the light over the
mountains, the world widens.
The clouds are building their
own town, a maze of hope.
Perhaps there are possibilities
and futures no living creature has yet imagined.
As long as the Earth is green,
I shall be there.
Always - for those
who live near me -
- those who work and those who
sincerely come together.
I know all about them.
The tale I have told
is only a small fraction -
But I do remember their craft,
the keels of their boats, -
- like a whisper over my back.
I shall never forget the men
who arrived with the light of spring -
- and vanished into the dark of autumn.
Sometimes they needed a break -
- to drink coffee.
And to stretch out,
to look at the clouds.
Those men were close to me,
the closest.
They knew more about me
than anyone else.
There is a river in every human being.
If you listen you can hear it.
*Voice of the River*
* *
I was there when the mountains rose -
- when the land folded and
the lava hardened.
I know well the anguish and
yearning of matter -
- but deep inside me,
far from the lovely glittering surface -
there is a great darkness of wisdom.
Dreams float through me.
First came the plants and then the
creatures.
I quenched their thirst, gave them life.
I have given life to many.
The first humans I saw were nomads.
I listened to their song and their
laughter, travelling with their reindeer.
Those who followed were different,
they came to stay.
There was force about them,
even violence -
- as though life was about winning,
conquering, defeating.
Yet they were brave and very skilful
steering their boats -
- riding my back.
In the springtime when the ice melted
they filled me with timber.
The logs danced about in my rapids
But you can easily slip on dancing logs.
Sometimes a man would lose
his foothold and fall -
- but manage to get up again.
There were others
who never came upagain.
Those I embraced and took them
to my secret springs -
- deep under the water.
Those were the days when I was still
free, when I still had all my powers.
* *
*Kerstin Omma*
* *
I have no longer any feeling for this
river.
It's just water that comes and goes.
Like a bathtub,
sometimes it's filled to the brim -
- and then you pull the plug
and it's empty.
For me, the water here -
- is no longer alive.
When I was a child, my parents made
their living mainly through fishing.
So in spring we would move up
along the lake system to fish.
When I grew up we had to learn all
about Sweden, of course.
Religion, Swedish geography.
The rivers down south,
streams I'd call them -
- we had to learn by heart
but the rivers up here -
- we didn't know much about.
* *
*Mats Lund:*
* *
I practically left school 1964 in
year 8 -
- and spent the last year
with dad in the forest.
In those days they used to come and
get you if you didn't go to school, -
- but they never did that with me.
I went there for breaking-up -
- and Christmas assemblies.
When the teachers asked:
"What do you do when you aren't in school?"
I said: "I work in the forest."
So I never lied, I told it like it was.
How old were you when you drove
in the forest for the first time?
I was twelve, and the boy
who helped me was nine.
The other night she phoned me
at seven in the evening.
"When are you coming home?"
"I'll just do one more round" I said, -
- but I think it was half past one
that night when I came home.
(That was so bloody funny ...)
I had such a bloody good time...
But if that's to work,
the way we go on -
- you really need a woman
who understands you.
Because it has happened...
I had three excavators once.
It happened that I left
on a Monday morning -
- to see how the lads
were getting on -
- and I didn't come back
before Thursday.
And there were no mobile phones then,
so she didn't know where I was.
It was so much fun out there,
so I helped them dig for a few days.
* *
*Eva-Stina Sandling*
* *
That river was something special
when it was still alive.
We played there, we were always
by it or on it somehow.
It's always been there
and I used to hear the rapids.
You could hear the rapids up here.
Sometimes I miss that.
Now there is a little stream over there.
When it gets going in the spring,
you can hear it.
But some older men say they could
tell the weather -
- from the rapids.
"Now it's going to change -
- now we'll get this or that..."
It must have been something to do
with humidity or air pressure.
That the rapids could forecast changes.
The sound of those rapids, well ...
The so called rapids we hear now, -
- that's those cables that drop
very low at one point.
When they get moist they start
rumbling.
It's like a greeting from the electricity -
- imprisoned in those cables.
The river used to be so dependable.
It was used as a trail, -
- the Sami travelled along the river.
I still remember the reindeer herds
arriving -
- like a black moving wave.
The Sami came up for a cup of coffee, -
- so the reindeer had to wait for a
couple of hours. And then they went on.
* *
*Per Olof Kuhmunen / Thorbjörn Edman*
* *
It's been said that the Sami put salt
in their coffee in the old days.
And did they?
Well, perhaps when they used
snow water which is distilled.
With a little salt the water
became normal.
I see.
That's how it was.
And that's been a good tale
for so many years!
And everybody believed they put salt in
because they liked salty coffee.
But reindeer owners
aren't stupid either!
Porsi means fors/rapids.
And Murjek is Sami for berries.
Jokkmokk is a sort of stream,
so you get Mokkina.
That means pub-crawl.
Drinking-bout, a round.
Jokkmokk?
Jokko, that's drink,
and mokk is a bend, a turn.
So pub-crawl is the free translation.
And does it live up to it?
* *
*The River*
* *
I throw myself about, I plunge down.
sometimes you need to be free -
- but I have been stemmed and
almost reduced to silence.
Only around me, in my tributaries, is
there still the song of freedom.
I call them my children, the rushing
wild waters which unite with me.
They know about yearning and revolting,
about refusing to be captured.
They rush towards a future that I believe
will make many of us break our chains.
* *
*Uno Wiklund*
* *
How old was I? Thirteen.
I just took the saw and went to
the forest to support myself.
That was in winter, of course, in
the summer I got into floating.
Yes, I was a "lecherous logger"
in those days!
We were a whole gang of boys
who got into floating -
- and were together
for many many years.
After all, there was nothing
but the forest.
You could be a lumberjack or,
in the summer, a log-driver.
There was this log-hook.
A hook with which you fastened the timber.
They would just put a handle on one
and say :"Here you are."
Then you had to learn everything
on your own.
Which we did.
I mean, we ran over the floats.
no boat needed, we ran on the logs.
That was fine -
- when you were a boy,
not so heavy either.
Today one would go under, I reckon.
We went out in the first morning light -
- at seven or even six, -
- and didn't stop before dark.
From dark to dark.
We were a close-knit gang there
for many, many years.
I went to see them ...
in the Kvikkjokk church-yard.
That's where they were, all dead.
I'm the only one left.
* *
*The River*
* *
Man has two souls.
One is in our body,
in our skin and our heart, -
- and it whispers about
what is nearest to us.
The other is the free soul, sister of
haze and clouds.
That soul can lift,
float through the air and fly away -
- to the most wondrous places.
It has no limits,
and all is now.
In the quiet light summer nights -
- I sometimes heard music far away.
I knew then that men and women
were feasting.
Words then did not mean so much -
- but with their hands
they made each other real.
Then children were born.
And work took over again.
* *
*Johannes Omma*
* *
You weren't old when you started.
Twelve or thirteen.
Then you walked, on skis.
Originally they travelled with reindeer
sleighs, even when I was a kid.
And in the spring, in April,
the families moved here.
You could hear the reindeers' hooves
clicking and the skis scraping the snow.
* *
*Kerstin Omma*
* *
There isn't so much activity now.
they walk carefully and look out
for their reindeer marks.
And they help each other, too.
You can hear them shouting -
- and lassoing for each other.
That's what makes
reindeer keepers such a -
- close community,
both young and old.
* *
*Helena Omma*
* *
Well, there isn't anything to lasso at
the moment, most are branded.
When you see an unbranded calf and it
runs away, you may not find it again.
* *
*Kerstin Omma*
* *
Here in our Sami village of Sör-Kaitum
we do have young people -
- who go in for this
and believe in it.
Even some girls are
interested in continuing -
- this traditional industry which
their parents -
- have worked with
and earlier generations, too.
* *
*The River*
* *
It is strange that people don't realise
that we see them.
Trees and mountains see them, animals
see them and turn away.
We are patient.
We wait for them to understand
that they are a part of the whole.
Our equals.
But they have so little time, -
They stock their barns and they
harvest, summer after summer.
And still only a few have plenty -
- and the others have almost nothing.
Man has an arrogance
which borders on cruelty.
They think theirs is all the power.
But what they
did to Áiliguojka I shall not forget.
Never. That was my most
beautiful place.
Áiliguojka.
The sacred fall.
* *
*Uno Wiklund*
* *
I shall tell you something.
When those project people came here
for the first time -
- they asked me
"Who is the village elder here?"
"That would be me," I said,
and since I was young then -
- they looked at me sceptically, of course.
There was this engineer, he was young.
He spit on the courtyard and said:
"But this can't be worth
anything, can it?"
And you must know that people have
been working here for 300 years.
I was the only one who went to court.
Everybody else took what Vattenfall offered.
So the water-rights compensation
for the Akka power station -
- didn't cost
the company anything, I'd say.
The generation who suffered then are
now dead.
Or else they went to America.
Then they settled up, but there wasn't
really a case to settle, when all were dead.
Nobody could defend themselves.
* *
*Eva-Stina Sandling*
* *
The first thing my sister and I and the
children playing along the edge noticed -
- were the sticks. Men came and
put sticks in the ground, -
- areas were measured,
height of fall, barrages.
So I felt that someone was -
- taking something away
from us, claiming our land.
And now ... oh, I know the feeling -
- of being colonised, of living -
- under a colonial power
that comes and gnaws away ...
it's under your skin, somehow.
* *
*Astrid Sandling*
* *
Fire is the best company you can have.
Can't you hear it talking?
* *
*Eva-Stina Sandling*
* *
I remember that some men here at the river
broke those sticks and threw them away.
"Wow," we thought.
So you see there was strong suspicion of -
- all the promises
one heard from Vattenfall.
* *
*Astrid Sandling*
* *
I don't think it was worst for me,
rather for my husband.
He just hated everything
to do with Vattenfall.
He fought on like a warrior.
But in the end you just had to come to
terms with reality, it just happened.
* *
*The River*
* *
I feel the smoke going past.
So many fires have been lit along my shores.
There were so many words
of grief and fury.
Sometimes on late August nights
I get calm -
- the wind rocks me.
Then I become a glittering breath of light,
of warmth and the sweet scent of myrtle.
I have heard the clouds
murmur of a time to come -
- without sorrow,
without deceit.
But they always move on
and leave me behind.
* *
*Hans Zackrisson*
* *
My parents were not married -
only engaged, and the engagement broke up.
And in these parts, you know -
- that means you are a bastard, a nobody.
Of course it's much easier to start -
- in the forest if you have an experienced father -
- who can teach you the ropes.
But I didn't, so I had a rough time.
But later, I have to say,
I got a really good job, -
- and things have never been better
for me than now, as I see it.
OK, there is the arthritis, an
operation here and an operation there, -
- but apart from that: fine!
* *
*Arne Wiklund*
* *
I have worked on the river
from Messaure to Luleå -
(I was eleven)
- for eleven summers and I've never
had a better job.
Out in the open and good work mates.
The weather wasn't always good,
but most of the time it was.
How did you learn blasting? Isn't it all
about how much dynamite you put in?
When you saw the logs lying
crosswise you set the dynamite -
- towards the bottom, in several
places -
- and you ignited at the far end,
but you used shorter and shorter fuses.
So the first blast came at the near
end and lifted them over the rocks, -
- then the next, lifting
them all the time.
Once I went blasting with a foreman,
supposed to be an expert.
We were to do some blasting down
at the Vittjärv power station, -
- so we drove out to the log jam.
I loaded at the near end and shouted:
"I'm ready, let's fire!" -
- but he at the far end had already
done that. He was so nervous -
- and when we were
50 metres away his blast goes off.
Such bits of timber came
down along the boat!
I was furious when we reached land,
and the boss was white as ghost.
He had seen the blast with
us only 50 metres away.
Once I blasted a log jam
from a helicopter.
I had to climb down on a rope-ladder
and that moves about like this.
And when you'd ignited, you were
a bit anxious for the helicopter to come in time.
No regulation that you had to
know anything about blasting.
So I loaded and ignited and signalled
for him to come.
And I climbed up the swaying rope-
ladder and the pilot was frightened -
- so you were 30 bloody metres up
in the air before you got on board.
And there was a guy with a knife to cut
off the rope-ladder in case it got stuck.
* *
*The River*
* *
In the autumn the lakes are like
eyes looking into space.
They search for signs and revelations.
The sun is the greatest artist.
It paints the clouds so beautifully
that I want to halt them, -
- embrace them, draw them down
into my mild, streaming darkness.
What happens when a
river and a cloud meet?
Sometimes even a river wants to play,
forget its direction -
- its knowledge, -
- while the arch of the bridge
tells of eternity -
- and someone is on the way home
in the last light of the evening.
Here they grew their crops
and built their homes.
There are traces everywhere
of those who left.
Did they find a better life?
Do they still remember how I sang
to them when darkness fell?
* *
*Mats Lund / Arne Wiklund.*
* *
We are no city folk.
Take that little town, Boden.
When you see the first buildings
by the waste dump you get nervous -
- and would rather
turn the car round and go back home.
Many say: "How the hell can you
live like that, so remote?"
My answer is that I have more
company than those in town.
Here we see each other in
the evening, we just visit, -
- no need to phone or be invited or so.
You come as you are.
I'll give you an example: last week
a hunting friend phoned and said:
"Can't we come round and
chop your firewood?"
I said: "What have you run
your head against this time?"
We don't have much to do. So now
I have three pensioners at home chopping my firewood.
Just like that.
Although they live 12 miles
from where I live.
But on Friday -
- they had to leave early because they
were going to pensioners' work-out.
* *
*Zara Hallman*
* *
The forests are getting used up.
They fight for the lasts sticks instead
of admitting publicly what is happening.
They don't want the Swedish people to
know that mature forest is vanishing.
Everywhere here there is now such
terribly intensive felling, -
- that every little grove is precious.
And this used to be a whole
mountain full of trees, -
- the last complete mountain.
* *
*Anna Hallman*
* *
What you want is forest, of course,
not just tree plantations.
That's not really proper forest.
* *
*Zara Hallman*
* *
Well, to start with we hadn't planned
to demonstrate or block machines.
Instead we were negotiating with Svea Skog,
so that more villages in the woods -
- should have the right to preserve forest
that was important to them, special forest.
It was our dream that other villages
should also have that possibility.
Everybody should have the right-
-to enjoy the beauty that is forest.
This beauty, which is so important
to man, and which is getting lost.
When you walk in a forest like this
you become happy and glad -
- to be able to see
and experience such a forest.
And to feel it.
* *
*Anna Hallman*
* *
I want forest around me -
- for me that is the nature -
- calm and silence.
Life, I'd like to call it.
* *
*TV-reporter*
* *
The disputed tree-felling near the
village of Valvträsk in Norrbotten -
- was stopped this morning.
* *
*Zara Hallman/Anna Hallman*
* *
We stood there for three hours before
they appeared.
And then they came up this path,
a great motorcade -
- with trucks, trailers
and all the machines.
With enormous floodlights,
the whole forest was lit up.
The ground was shaking when the
machines came, just trembling.
We felt quite small then.
We stood there ready for them
every morning at four -
- when they started the machines
on the path here.
For two weeks.
I think we could have gone on longer,
if they'd let us.
If they hadn't taken us away with force.
They came out and said: "You have -
- half an hour to
pack your stuff and leave."
I didn't want to leave,
so they had to drag me away, -
- one policeman on each arm.
It was like...
They wanted to show us that they
had the power and we had no say at all.
That's how I remember it.
It didn't matter what anybody said.
"I have decided and that is -
- how it is going to be"
* *
*The River*
* *
I like those who speak their mind.
But they were too few.
I believe there will be more.
* *
*Kurt Fredriksson*
* *
I had worked for Svea Skog for 24 years -
and then they called the office and we
were given notice in a matter of two minutes.
"Thank you for your time with us."
"Good work."
Of course one was furious, inevitably.
And bloody disappointed.
I don't know how to say this but...
In big decisions the humble worker
has no say in the end.
That's how it is, quite simply.
For 15 years now we have pointed out -
- that one can't fell at this rate.
There isn't enough forest.
But you try and tell that
to an academic these days.
"What are you talking about."
Deep inside they know, of course,
that you can't fell at this rate.
But these are companies.
Shareholders want to
see money, so they just fell -
- and look confident.
And that I really hadn't reckoned with -
- to bloody move away from here
at 42 years of age.
This is where I grew up
and here I will stay.
* *
*Eva-Stina Sandling*
* *
I think it gets steadier like this.
That's how they do timbered walls.
It's fun, I like birch wood,
it's good to work with.
I think you have to ask permission
before you take it.
I like it to be a little lopsided,
I don't want it to be quite straight.
If I hadn't grown up by this river
and always been so near to it, -
- I would never have told stories
and used words -
- the way I have done all my life,
I am sure of that.
It does have a voice, and
it has taught me a lot.
Sometimes I feel as though the
river is a part of myself.
Perhaps because water has such an
important role in the cycle of nature, -
- all the drops leaving and coming back.
All that water means to man,
to the human body, to the universe.
Sometimes I feel that the river
somehow flows through me.
Many people depend on the forest,
have bought big machines and incurred debts.
Now they have to drive them
day and night to break even.
And to say something that
puts their income at risk, -
- to express a different opinion.
That takes a lot of courage.
* *
*Mats Lund*
* *
Hello there!
I wouldn't say that things go well,
no one would ever admit that.
It works out, we survive.
We make a living out of it.
That's the main thing.
And we support many other people.
* *
*Children*
* *
All the raindeers are gone.
Are all the raindeers dead?
* *
*Helena Omma*
* *
Yes, we have slaughtered them all.
Your landscape is ravaged, roads cleave
you like wounds which will never heal.
Your small lakes and streams
have become a vast sea.
The sound of car engines
and motor-scooters -
- is as common as birds' chirping
in your world.
Nature is no longer allowed
to have its course in peace.
And yet I can sense past ages
beyond the mountains, -
- can hear our forefathers' easy
steps on forgotten paths, -
- can feel the smell of smoke
rising from their homes.
I roam among the same mountains,
under the same sky as they did.
With you I feel secure.
Sometimes very little is enough to remind us
that we are just human beings on this earth.
Creatures like all the others,
not more nor less.
They tell me how very beautiful it
was before they built the dams, -
- but I have never seen anything but
this, so I think it's beautiful anyway.
My parents may think that it has
become a huge lake, all this.
But this sight has become such a
deep-rooted image that, -
- if I shut my eyes back in
Gällivare, I can still see it, -
- know exactly what it looks like.
There is so much that is beautiful in
this world but -
- you can't compare it,
because this is my home, after all.
It is the most beautiful place on earth.
I don't think I'll ever change my mind.
* *
*The River*
* *
Now comes the light over the
mountains, the world widens.
The clouds are building their
own town, a maze of hope.
Perhaps there are possibilities
and futures no living creature has yet imagined.
As long as the Earth is green,
I shall be there.
Always - for those
who live near me -
- those who work and those who
sincerely come together.
I know all about them.
The tale I have told
is only a small fraction -
But I do remember their craft,
the keels of their boats, -
- like a whisper over my back.
I shall never forget the men
who arrived with the light of spring -
- and vanished into the dark of autumn.
Sometimes they needed a break -
- to drink coffee.
And to stretch out,
to look at the clouds.
Those men were close to me,
the closest.
They knew more about me
than anyone else.
There is a river in every human being.
If you listen you can hear it.