Carleton College: Media Relations

Photographing a Way of Life: The Saami of Northern Sweden
Written by Jill Golden '04
Photographs by Davin Ellicson '01

Davin Ellicson is interested in more than the two-dimensional aspect of photography—he wants to know the stories behind the pictures he takes.

Ellicson, a senior history major at Carleton, spent two weeks last summer documenting a group of Saami reindeer herders above the Arctic Circle in Sweden. The Saami, an indigenous population spread across Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia, are facing changes due to the impact of an industrializing society.

"A large part of my Saami project is about creating a meaningful portfolio of pictures on a subject that I feel could benefit from better representation," he said.

Ellicson, who is from Pittsfield, Mass., first heard about the Saami a year ago from his sister, who had studied in Stockholm. He used the Internet to help turn his vague curiosity about the Saami into a photographic excursion—after looking up books on the Saami, Ellicson began e-mailing Hugh Beach, an American anthropologist who had lived with the Saami 25 years ago and is now living and teaching in Sweden. While Beach was helpful, he didn’t offer Ellicson much concrete assistance. "He didn’t really think I could actually get up there, so he never really gave me, or didn't want to give me, any specific names of people up in Lapland," Ellicson said.

Ellicson received a Carleton Larson fellowship, given to juniors for summer travel, and studied Swedish last summer in Uppsala, Sweden. At the completion of his study, he decided to pursue photographing the Saami. Without any specific contacts or names to use to connect with the Saami herders, Ellicson did the next best thing: he used Beach’s book to map out his journey.

While retracing Beach’s steps, Ellicson met an English-speaking woman in Staloluokta, a small village where some Saami live during the summer, who told him about a series of reindeer herd separations which would soon take place. Two weeks later, Ellicson was above the Arctic Circle photographing the Turopon Saami herd separations in Parka.

Formerly a nomadic group, Saami families now each have three or four permanent dwellings in the grazing lands, and their year is divided by the movement of the herds. In August, the herds are separated according to which clan they belong. Instead of brandings, the Saami make intricate ear-notches on the reindeer to show which family owns them. The Turopon Saami, which Ellicson observed, and another group were trying to separate their herds, which had mixed while grazing in the north. During the herd separations, the Saami bring all the reindeer into corrals and divide them by their ear-notchings. After they have been separated, the clans lead their reindeer to the south for winter grazing. To make money, the Saami slaughter the sarvs—mature male reindeer—in the fall, and sell the meat in Scandinavia and continental Europe.

Ellicson hopes his photographs will change some perceptions about the people. Stereotypes of a reindeer herder as a man with a giant blonde beard and a coat made of animal skins are not an accurate reflection of Ellicson’s experience. "In Scandinavia, the Saami are wearing stuff like this," Ellicson said, pointing to his synthetic jacket. "Since Scandinavia has such a high standard of living, the Saami benefit from that too."

Though the Saami now often use snowmobiles instead of Nordic skis and Gore-Tex instead of animal skin, they are also facing the downside of a growing Scandinavia. Mining, clearcutting of forests, and hydroelectric powerdams have eliminated areas of reindeer grazing land. "The Saami can’t continue to subsist just on reindeer herding [anymore]," Ellicson said.

In addition to the alteration of their land, the reindeer herded by the Saami have also been impacted by changes in the environment. "There have been terrible problems with pollution. This happened in Lapland in 1986 with Chernobyl. The fallout in polar regions affected the lichen that the reindeer eat and that caused them to become radioactive. The reindeer had such a high cesium-137 level that they couldn't sell the reindeer anymore because it was toxic. I think that still proves a problem, although it’s been about 15 years," Ellicson said.

Ellicson will graduate in a few months, and though he’s still unsure about what he’ll do, he knows he will continue to be a photographer. Ultimately, Ellicson wants to spend an entire year with the Saami and photograph the series of reindeer migrations. He is also intrigued by the idea of doing a photographic comparison study between the Swedish Saami and the Russian Saami who live on the Kola Peninsula and have suffered from communism and Russia’s failing economy. Ellicson is excited about returning to the group: "I just barely tapped visually what’s there," he said.

Ellicson’s first step after Carleton will be another adventure, as he hopes to move to Europe. "I've read all these histories of photography where these young photographers have gone off to Europe. I’m a little caught up in the Romantic idea of that."