Sami National Day and Slow TV

Sami national day / Samenes nasjonal dag - 6th February

Monday 6th February 2017 is National Sami day - an indigenous culture in the northern of Scandinavia covering parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia; this year marks the centenary of the first Sami congress in Trondheim, Norway where Sami from Sweden and Norway met to address common issues.

By virtue of Slow TV starting in Norway and NRK's charter requiring the broadcaster promotes all aspects of Norwegian culture, Slow TV has been been helpful in further highlighting the Sami culture to a wider audience.

The 2014 60 hour continuous Slow TV sing-through of the entire 899 hymns of the Norwegian Hymnbook, Salmeboka Minutt for Minutt, featured several hymns in Sami and Sami participants, as well as in Kvensk, another indigenous culture in northern Norway.

In 2015, the BBC showed just short of two hours of reindeer pulling a sleigh in the Karasjok area of Norway, guided by Sami herders.

If you'd like a sample of contemporary Sami music, try this Reindeer Herder's Joik from from Jon Henrik Fjällgren. 

 

Then, within the next few months from writing this post, NRK, the Norwegian broadcaster, will be returning with seven days or more continuous reindeer migration from the Finnmark plateau to the coast - under the care of Sami reindeer herders. 

Google translate doesn't offer me a translation in Sami to wish you all the best for the Sami National Day, so I trust a simple Norwegian 'Gratulerer med dagen' will be enough.

I'll be delving a lot more into the reindeer migration Slow TV with a recorded  interview with the producers in Bergen as well as music from Sami and Norwegian artists on my radio show on RedShift Radio on Thursday 16th February between, 8 and 10pm UK time.

There's more to read from the Swedish Sami Parliament (in English) and Norwegian Sami Parliament.

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