Winner of the “Book of the Year 2005” prize by the SikuNews in Canada, Snowscapes, Dreamscapes -publication is now available as PDFs, ten years after its initial release.
Snowscapes Cover, 2004
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Snowscapes, Dreamscapes – A Snowchange Community Book of Change
(original release April 2004)
Snowscapes, Dreamscapes is a unique publication. It can be read as a collection of observations of change around the world. As well it is a journey to the Indigenous and Northern mindscape.
It is a collaboration between young people from the dominant society and Indigenous people, sharing a concern for the condition of the North that we all call home. These voices have been collected in this volume.
This book does not give ready made answers. It embraces all knowledge as equal and worthy of respect.
We wish to share thoughts and knowledge of the Indigenous and local people on climate, cultural and ecological change based on their own experience and cultural understanding. We wish to give space to those meanings and positions that the Indigenous people articulate and interpret themselves.
Indigenous discourse and the knowledge embedded in it are mainly local, of everyday character, deep and spiritual, based on long-term observation and personal experience. We hope to trap the concepts “modernity” and “global change” into a critical dialogue with locality.
Accompanying the community voices are ‘Dreamscapes’ – Stories and Paintings by Elina Helander. Her material, inspired by Sami mythology, serves as guidance to Indigenous values and modes of thought.
Editors:
Elina Helander is a Sami reindeer owner from Utsjoki, Finland. She works at the Arctic Centre, the University of Lapland as a senior scientist.
Tero Mustonen is a traditional Finn from Tampere, Finland with roots in North Karelia. He works at the Tampere Polytechnic, Finland as the Project Manager for Snowchange. He fishes and writes poems.