Eastern Sámi family camp in Seitsul Island, Kola Peninsula, in late 1800s. Photo: Courtesy of the Snowchange Co-op, 2014
The Eastern Sámi Atlas 1999-2013
Eastern Sámi Atlas has won the ‘Best Book of the Year’ award by a US science organisationas well as in Finland for the National Kalevala Society, and awarded Snowchange with the prestigenous ‘Skolt Sámi of the Year’ Award. It is a landmark publication for the Indigenous work in the Eurasian North and the flagship work of Snowchange Co-op with the Sámi communities.
A ground-breaking 334-page publication “Eastern Sámi Altas” tells the story of Eastern Sámi, a little-known indigenous group. The atlas is in English with over 60 maps many of which have never been published in an international scholarly publication before. The work began in 1999.
Snowchange has led community-based traditional knowledge work in many areas since 2000. Here a photo from the all-nation Press Conference, Murmansk, Russia, 2003. Photo: Snowchange, 2014
Eastern Sámi Atlas provides a clear view of the histories, land use and occupancy on the lives of the Indigenous societies and peoples in the Eastern part of Sápmi. Book provides a unique basis for discussions and processes related to Indigenous uses of the land. Included are artworks, unique color and black and white photos, poems, songs and other cultural reflections of this region.
This book documents changes from prehistory to events of the Soviet rule leading up to the contemporary post-Soviet context. Materials are drawn from early historical an ethnographic documents, explorer accounts, oral histories of the Sámi themselves and contemporary views.
The Eastern Sámi communities who took part in the work during 1999-2010 have been able to influence the process at all stages of the project. Using these mechanisms the Sámi have been coresearcher owning their knowledges.Observations of environmental and weather changes are included.
Internationally renowed experts have contributed essays to the atlas:
- Paul Fryer from the Department of Geographical and Historical Studies at the University of Eastern Finland – Joensuu, Finland reflects upon one of the migrant communities of Russian North – the Kola Komi, or Iz’vatas (‘People of the Iz’va River’) people.
- A renowned expert of the Eastern Sámi Leif Rantala tells the story of the Äʹǩǩel (Akkala) Sámi.
- In “Premonitions of Change: Luujäuʹrr (Lovozero) Home Talk Twenty Years After” researcher Yulian Konstantinov from the University of Tromssø, Norway writes what can be considered a letter from contemporary Luujäuʹrr (Lovozero).
- The Kola Sámi demographic information drawn from Russian sources over the past decades is explored by Professor Sergey Zavalko from the Murmansk State Technical University, Russia.
Contact Snowchange if you are interested in this currently sold-out document.