Explore Sámi crafts on a road trip through Swedish Lapland

With 24 saunas to 23 residents, it’s fair to say the village of Liehittäjä has at least one more sauna than is strictly necessary. Spend any time here, however, and you soon understand the ratio — this is not, you’ll see, a community that does things by halves.

Seventeen of those 23 residents belong to the same family, and I meet three of them one winter’s morning when the thermometer sits some way below zero and a gentle snowfall drifts from a leaden sky. It adds to the piles disguising the farm machinery and stacks of timber left in front yards, and introduces some extra peril to the clumps balancing precariously on the branches of spruce and birch. It’s a world of monochrome simplicity: white snow, dark trees, deathly quiet, deathly still.

Entering the home of the Huuva family is to be pulled back into full technicolour. A blast of warm air, the smell of coffee and frying eggs, and the burble of happy chatter instantly shake off the chill. In the open-plan living room, Henry adds logs to the wood burner, under close scrutiny of dogs Nasti and Lucas. Pia brings dishes to a candle-lit table already promising abundance. And their daughter Maja sits in a rocking chair, weaving strips of leather into a narrow braid.

The Huuvas are the epitome of the creative life I’m in Swedish Lapland to explore. It’s a region of vast forests broken by lakes and spliced by gravel roads on which you might drive for an hour and not see another car. And it’s a region where ingenuity has always blossomed, in reaction to the often harsh environment. “You have to be creative to live in a place like this,” says Henry, taking his place for breakfast. “If you want something, you can’t just go to the 7-Eleven. Everyone here is everything — hunter, butcher, carpenter, tailor.”

With tufty white hair, kind twinkling eyes and trousers held up by braces, there’s a hint of Father Christmas to Henry, and the family home gives solid Santa’s workshop vibes. Everything in it seems to have been crafted by a Huuva — the patterned woollen blankets on the chairs, the bright artworks on the walls, the crispbread and sliced reindeer meat we eat, the meadowsweet juice we drink, the wooden bowls and spoons on the table, the table itself, even the house itself. Every object has a story behind it — and, since 2010, the family has been inviting guests to hear them, sharing tales, crafts and food in an atmosphere of the warmest conviviality.

As a Sámi, the creative instinct is in Henry’s blood. The Indigenous population of northern Sweden, Finland, Norway and parts of Russia, the Sámi have been in Lapland for more than 9,000 years, traditionally following their reindeer herds to seasonal grazing lands through the months. They once had to be creative simply to survive, using every part of the animals and forest for food, clothing and shelter. Their nomadic home was the lavvu, a tent-like structure held up by aspen poles. “Imagine sitting in the lavvu by the light of the fire at night,” says Pia. “You were always doing something — carving a spoon, making shoes, mending clothes. And when you did, why not make it beautiful?”

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Pia, with a naturally friendly face framed by red glasses, is originally from central Sweden but wholeheartedly embraced the Sámi way of life when she moved north to be with Henry. As the dogs doze by the fire, she proudly pulls out boots of reindeer leather and hide made by his grandfather and wool dresses patterned with red and yellow stripes made by Maja.

Interest in Indigenous culture has grown in recent decades, compensating for the centuries when the Sámi’s language and culture were actively repressed by the Swedish government, and Maja learnt many of the skills at which she is now adept at Sámi arts and crafts school. “I try as much as possible to soak up the culture so I can bring it forward,” she says. “It’s been such a taboo thing for so long. There was this shaming process around being a Sámi, but now young people are reclaiming it. We’re proud of it.”

Hanging from her ears and pinned to her dress are further examples of cultural reclamation: silver jewellery, shimmering in the soft light like fish scales. It’s of no surprise to discover they’re made by another of the Huuva clan. Pia takes me to meet their creator, driving the few miles to Hedenäset along empty roads. We find Henry’s daughter Erika and her husband Aslat at their studio in the town’s old schoolhouse, with the wide frozen slick of the Torne River visible through the windows.

Erika sits beneath an Anglepoise lamp at a workbench, tapping patterns into a round piece of recycled silver, eyes laser-focused behind her wire-framed glasses. Around her are the tools of her industry — hammers, pliers, bits of wire, chisels, pieces of antler, plastic boxes filled with beads and links. She took up silver-making at Sámi arts and crafts school, and started her jewellery business in 2005. “I learnt about traditional design and the mythology behind it, then I added my own stamp,” she says.

The traditional designs go back a surprisingly long way, with the Sámi trading fur and meat for silver from the Middle Ages. “Silver for the Sámi has many layers,” Erika tells me. “It was monetary back then but also sacred — we gave silver amulets to children as protection from evil spirits, for example.”

Her designs — delicate patterns adorning statement rings, necklaces, earrings and art pieces — garnered so much attention that Aslat gave up reindeer herding to become an apprentice silversmith and join her. He wears a long Sámi tunic cinched around the waist by a belt decorated with square silver studs; the top is held together by a silver clasp. “Traditionally, round buttons mean you’re married, square buttons mean you’re single,” he says. “But every generation makes their own tradition — Sámi culture is living culture, not a museum piece.”

Demonstrating just how alive it is, the studio is full of boxes containing pieces of work destined for the town of Jokkmokk, 160 miles to the north west. In two days’ time, they’ll be unpacked for the most important event in the Sámi calendar — the Jokkmokk Winter Market, coinciding with Sámi National Day. A festival celebrating Indigenous identity, drawing people from across Northern Europe, it’s my final destination, too — an apt end to my cultural journey in a couple of days.

Northern exposure

Bundled up against the cold, snowshoes clipped to our boots, Gunhild Stensmyr and I stand on the banks of the Torne River and gaze upwards. The sky is making art of its own — a shy, barely-there display of the Northern Lights, which waft and flare in wispy greys and soft greens across the night’s dark canvas.

Locally born Gunhild is slowly adding her own creations to the landscape, aiming to complement anything that nature might produce. With a long career as an art-gallery curator and director behind her, her vision for her home region is Konsthall Tornedalen, a world-class gallery in the Torne valley showcasing contemporary works from both regional and international artists. “We’re building an art space in a village with 53 people in it,” she tells me with a smile as we pad away from the riverbank, the aurora done for the night. “It’s a little crazy.”

Constructing an 8,600sq ft gallery with the requisite security and climate control to house priceless artwork — in a remote region where the ground is frozen for six months of the year — is not a project that comes to fruition quickly. There’s no official opening date yet, but Gunhild isn’t the sort of person to sit around and twiddle her thumbs. Her side project is Arthotel Tornedalen. She’s bought and restored abandoned houses in the village of Risudden and turned them into accommodation, each one home to a careful curation of Nordic paintings and sculptures, one-off pieces of vintage furniture and local crafts. They look across fields to the Torne River, with Finland visible on the other side.

“When I was a child, I used to ski across the frozen river to buy candy,” Gunhild tells me once we’ve returned to the Arthotel’s central building, Huset Wennberg, and are thawing out. “It was cheaper in Finland.”

Short hair swept to one side and Jack Russell Bruno a constant presence by her side, Gunhild has an enthusiasm for the region that’s infectious. “People who find themselves here want to try new places and they like to be somewhere where other people don’t go,” she says, of the resident artists and travellers who land in Tornedalen. “And I want them to feel at home — although it’s a home with a museum-quality art collection! You feel so good in your mind when you’re surrounded by nice things.”

Gunhild is part of a growing number of hotel owners in Swedish Lapland who don’t do boring. To the west is Aurora Safari Camp, accessible in winter by a sleigh ride across Lake Degerselet and with lavvu-style cabins hidden in the forest; beyond that is Arctic Bath, whose centrepiece restaurant, spa and pool look like a giant bird’s nest frozen into the Lule River. The food is equally inventive, with extraordinary dishes conjured out of ingredients including reindeer moss and birch oil.

At Arthotel, there’s culinary invention of a different sort. However tempting it is to sit with a glass of wine and an art book, guests are encouraged by Gunhild to connect with nature and local heritage during their stay — perhaps joining a reindeer herder in the nearby forest or learning how to carve a kåsa, a wooden cup traditionally used by the Sámi. On my final night, I opt to connect with nature and local heritage via a dinner deep in the woods behind Huset Wennberg.

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Joining me is Theodor Ringborg, the tousle-haired Stockholm-born director of the nascent Konsthall Tornedalen gallery. It’s dark by the time we set off, and we make enjoyably slow progress along a narrow track through the trees. In the beam of our head torches, the ice crystals in the snow banked either side of us glitter and flash. “Art and creativity in the north are often overlooked,” Theodor says as we trudge happily on, Venus and Jupiter our guides in a star-speckled sky. “I don’t think anyone has built an institution like Konsthall in a rural community like this before, but it’s unfair that people from Lapland have to travel to Stockholm to see art that was made here.”

After a mile, a distant beacon of light appears in a clearing — a fire burning fierce and bright in the darkness. Pottering around it is Simmi Ojalehto, chef and all-round sorter-outer for the Arthotel. Gathered around the flames, we’re soon tucking into charred dough sticks, grilled elk meat, potatoes and peppers, and pancakes with sugar, cinnamon and cardamom. It’s a special kind of feast, cooked simply on the fire and eaten under a blazing firmament of stars. “In this kind of environment, everyone has to find new ways to be creative,” Theodor tells me. “That’s what’s exciting about being here.”

The creative season

The thermometer reads -26C when I continue on my way to Jokkmokk, driving north past forests and fields scattered with red wooden barns and farmhouses. The road occasionally passes over rivers whose black, fast-flowing waters have resisted the freeze. In all other regards, it’s a landscape on hold, hunkering down until spring comes.

There’s no let-up, however, for Eva Gunnare. I meet her at her kitchen and workshop in the hamlet of Lassbyn, two hours shy of Jokkmokk. Heavy snow has just started to fall and it’s comforting to be inside, watching as the world turns grey and murky beyond the candles flickering on the windowsills. Founder of Essence of Lapland, which runs foraging walks, natural health workshops, cooking courses and dinners, Eva bustles about in a merry whirl of activity and chatter. Once married to a Sámi reindeer herder, she took a year-long course in Sámi traditional food — and was hooked. “I like experimenting,” she says, inspecting a pot of lingonberry juice boiling on the stove. “I like having the base knowledge, but then I can be creative.”

On the shelves are vintage tins containing candied angelica, pine salt, labrador tea and pineapple weed, and glass bottles filled with spruce oil and dandelion syrup. Each plant comes from a nearby meadow, mountainside or forest and has been dried, boiled or pickled, ready to be made into a dish or natural remedy. “What I like is that I know where I have picked everything,” Eva says, cheeks rosy from the warmth. “In winter, I can work with everything I collected earlier in the year.” She invites me to sample some of the dishes she serves along with songs and stories in her ‘eight seasons’ dinner, a celebration of Lapland’s cyclical variety. Along with a rich mushroom soup and meadowsweet cordial, I try juniper butter on pine-bark crackers, and pickled spruce tips with pink peppercorns. The flavours are like nothing I’ve tasted before — it’s like absorbing the restorative freshness of a forest.

Eva is preparing for Jokkmokk Winter Market herself so, with the storm clearing, I continue north, passing the Arctic Circle as the setting sun paints the clouds such a bright pink, they look like they’re on fire. Four miles beyond is Jokkmokk, and the town is a hive of activity — roads are being sealed off, vans are arriving and unloading goods, people scurry about carrying boxes. In a central square, there’s an air of anticipation as small groups stand chatting around firepits, grilling sausages on sticks.

The square’s full by the time the opening parade begins. Every year since 1965, it’s been led by herder Per Kuhmunen. A cheer goes up when he appears — resplendent in red tunic and pom-pom hat, leading a white reindeer with magnificent antlers. Members of his family follow, each in traditional Sámi dress, right down to the toddlers pulled along in sleds. “Welcome to Jokkmokk Winter Market,” Per says, halting at a microphone on a temporary stage. “We’re 420 years old this year — that’s older than America.”

Established as a trading post, Jokkmokk has been used to the comings and goings of outsiders for centuries, which perhaps explains how a town of 3,000 residents so effortlessly welcomes more than 30,000 visitors for the festival. For three days, they amble through town and stop at stalls selling woollen rugs, reindeer kebabs, leather gloves and handmade ceramics; attend cultural talks and film showings; admire students’ work at the Sámi arts and crafts school; and generally eat, drink and be merry. Many head down to the town’s frozen lake to watch the traditional Sámi sport of reindeer-racing, the competitors lying flat on their stomachs on sleds as their reindeer belt around a circular track. (“I’ll explain the rules,” says the compere. “You have to go really fast and hold on really tight and scream a lot.”)

There are quieter moments, too. In a lavvu on the outskirts of town, Juhán Niila Stålka shares another vital facet of Sámi culture, the joik. Traditionally used to express identity and a connection with nature, it follows none of the patterns of Western music. “When you look up joik in the dictionary,” Juhán says as we sit cross-legged on reindeer hides, “it says it’s improvised singing, but I don’t like that. It’s when something is too complicated to describe in words — it’s like carrying a story in melody.”

He demonstrates by joiking and asking me to guess what he’s communicating — a bouncing, stacatto refrain, for example, is a crow hopping on the ground. “A good joiker will go out in nature and listen, and the joiks are all out there waiting,” he says.

The lilting melodies stay with me as I return to town for a final catch-up. In the Sámi Adult Education Centre, I find the Huuva family. Erika and Aslat are behind their stall talking to customers. At the neighbouring stand, Henry sits carving a spoon. Maja is beside him weaving and Pia is busy arranging leather pouches, wooden birds and burr bowls around them. They chat excitedly about the big family dinner they’ll have this evening, and the dance the younger Huuvas will join tomorrow.

Before leaving them to their work, I ask Maja what she thinks is the secret to a creative life. She pauses for a bit, then replies, “Always say yes. New things can lead to good things.”