Today, nobody lives there, but several families summer in their modern cabins in the meadows seen here in front of Milvina.
They were a very friendly and helpful group. The younger ones all spoke English, but the older ones , who had been born in the former village, did not.
(Double click any picture to see full size, then use the back button on your browser to return here)
The
fjord is mostly too deep for anchoring, but we found a good spot on the
sandy debris washed down by the river, which is fed by two large waterfalls
overlooking the anchorage.The Sami maintain several trails, which made hiking around great fun.
The
main trail leads up a steep valley to a plateau at about 600 metres, which
leads over into Sweden.Like many fjords, the sides are steep and high, but once on top there are miles of rocky plateau country.
We hiked up, and across the full width of Norway one day. It is only 8 km at this point, but the trail has lots of variety with waterfalls, interesting rocks and some flat sections, including this ford across a lake.
It has a wooden frame of small tree trunks and branches, covered with about half a metre of peat.
This was one of the standard ways to build houses in the old days.
The peat provided good insulation of course, but I wonder how long the wood would resist rot. Probably only a few years.
The Sami are the indigenous people living across Northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola peninsula of Russia. They were described as Laplanders when we were at school.
As in North America, southerners have tried to both eliminate and assimilate the the Sami over the past couple of hundred years. Today, they have partial self government and have some support and cultural protection from each national government.