Crafting New Pathways: A walking-stick-making workshop with Sámi artists Jenni Laiti and Tilde-Ristin Kuoljok

The Sámi people are inhabiting their ancestral territory in the Arctic which encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and most of the Kola Peninsula in the Russian side of Sápmi in particular. The Sámi people are the only Indigenous people in the European Union and there are approximately 100,000 Sámi. Traditional Sámi livelihoods include fishing, hunting and gathering, handicrafts, and reindeer herding; these pursuits continue today, incorporating modernized ways of practicing them. 

The Sámi have been a nomadic people living in the Arctic landscape in a reciprocal way. Walking has been the most conventional way of traveling in the pre-industrial fossil free world. There are over 350 words in the Sámi language for different kinds of walking, and the walking stick has been an essential tool for moving around.