From Cheri this week’s challenge – Atop
…I really felt I was, and my daughter too – in New Zealand and in Norway
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Art
More Longings..
WPC: The Road Taken
For this week’s challenge, Krista asks us to show something that surprised us on “the road taken.” Many roads taken…but this road over the moors up to Heathcliff’s and Cathy’s Wuthering Heights really surprised me. We walked for hours, and the landscape was just as beautiful and haunting as in the novel…one of the world’s greatest love stories. I almost felt them whispering in the wind, laughing and running, hand in hand.
Travel theme: Bark
Imagine a lady dog barking at my best friend…and he doesn’t say a word against her. Does not answer. Just keeps playing along in the wild game…Maybe Totti is a bit like the giant flower terrier in Bilbao – a cool beauty.
Lev! Live!
In Umeå, where my daughter is studying, there is a 170 meter long glass wall in the railway tunnel (2012) decorated with some 30 quotes from the works of author Sara Lidman (1923-2004)- Lev!(Live)
She was born in the village Missenträsk and raised in the Västerbotten region of northern Sweden. She studied at the University of Uppsala when she contracted tuberculosis. She achieved her first great successes with the novel Tjärdalen (The Tar Still) and the novel Hjortronlandet, where she depicts themes such as alienation and loneliness.
Sara Lidman is one of the most important writers of the Swedish language in the twentieth century. Especially because of her innovative language and imagery, Biblical but also integrating the worldly and the spiritual. She also wrote extensively on political subjects, always with a strong feeling for the poor, against war and colonialism, pornography and the misuse of our natural environment. She engaged in protest against the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa.
Picture provided by and thanks to Wikipedia.
Thursday Thoughts – Moving a Town
Kiruna is the northernmost town in Sweden, situated in the province of Lapland in Norrbotten County. Inhabitants – about 20 000.
Esrange Space Center was established in Kiruna in the 1960s, and they also have the Institute of Space Physics.
The re-development of Kiruna is a reconstruction project, as the Kirunavaara mine, run by LKAB, undermines the current town center. Several buildings, including Sweden´s most beautiful church and the famous Town Hall, are to be moved or demolished. The whole town center is to be moved 3 kilometers to the east.
The ground deformations became apparent in 2003, and the redevelopment started in 2007. The moving of the town was started in 2014 and is expected to be finished by 2100. According to the plan, there will be a denser city centre with a greater focus on sustainability, green and blue infrastructure, pedestrians and public transport rather than automobiles.
Walking the empty streets at night, the snowy silence is almost visible, touchable, embedding you in cotton cold. I wonder how the people here really feel…knowing most of them will have to leave their homes and their familiar surroundings for something they have not chosen themselves. A great piece of history will be lost, and I guess a piece of Lapland´s soul as well.
Jokkmokk – The Reindeer Race
Every year there is this race on the lake – and it is great fun to watch it. The reindeer are indeed not very tame, and they have to be handled rather like the wild creatures they are… But they seem to like this game – and the running!
The horns often got tangled in the ropes…
…but finally time for a new race!
…and the reindeer eager!
Almost unstoppable…
Well…the last guy was really funny – and he most certainly enjoyed this game even more than the reindeer….No sledge, just his boots!
The reindeer are quite unstoppable as well, as you can see from the pictures. When they have finished the race…they will go on running!
And walking them home can be rather tricky too – even more if they are two…
Thursday Thoughts – Jokkmokks Marknad -412 Years Old
”Jokkmokk’s Market has a long history and is considered to have a four hundred-year unbroken tradition. Permanent marketplaces near the Sámi’s winter settlements were established by the Swedish crown at the beginning of the 17th century in all the Sámi Lappish territories on both sides of the Gulf of Bothnia. The purpose was to strengthen the state’s control of the population in the north as well as to collect taxes, hold legal court and spread the Word of God. Planning a market in the Lappish territories during the coldest time of the year had several advantages. The Sámi were gathered in their winter settlements in the forest area with winter grazing for their reindeer and the frozen waterways constituted magnificent roads for the merchants, state officials and men of the church.”
http://www.jokkmokksmarknad.se/visitors/history/
”Renrajden” is every year led by Per Kuhmunen and his family. It takes at least a year to tame the reindeer as much as needed to follow their leaders through the market place and let people touch them. At the Snow Scene in the middle of the market place, they sometimes let themselves be interviewed and photographed in the traditional Gákti. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A1kti
His wife makes all the beautiful clothes for the family…
…but now the older children make their own Sámi clothes
Once in a while Per might say a word or two…but must be coaxed into it…
Not many words from his wife either. I guess that is the way of northeners.
The Sámi people have always led a harsh life, and today they also have problems with the global warming that hits hard up north. As the weather wavers between warm and cold, the ground will get icy and the reindeer cannot find food enough. Last year some 30000 reindeer starved to death in northern Russia.
Per Kuhmunen and his family comes back every year to Jokkmokk’s Market. Today they are met by film cameras and ordinary cameras, radio and TV. But they seem to enjoy it.
Between Old and New.
CFFC: Things That Looks Like Faces
Art Suites – In the Rocks
When the first snow has arrived somewhere in November, artists from all over the world come together in the village to take part in creating the art exhibition of snow, ice and light that makes up Icehotel.
My guess is that they will spend quite some time in the cosy bar…! Here you get drinks in ice glasses…as they say – in the rocks.
From the beginning, the glasses were made by hand. But, as the guests started to get numerous, the capacity of three glasses a day became a bit too slow…so now they are machine made. Do you know that they last only for 30-45 minutes? Then the alcohol will make the ice melt and make your drink end up in your lap. Glasses made for fast drinkers like Hemingway then…
The selected artists who are invited to take part are not required to have worked with ice before. Instead, those who want to participate have to send in their ideas based on originality, and creating it in natural ice will pose a new challenge. Some 200 applications usually end up in some 40 artists coming here in November each year for the construction of the rooms. But this year they were about 60 – to decorate the new art suites.
The artists often work two at a time in the rooms, and when they are finished, they are allowed to stay one night in their creation…and only one night.
Let us walk down the corridor and peep inside some of the art suites!
Mermaid Fitness – Nina & Magnus Hedman
Oh Deer – Ulrika Tallving & Carl Wellander
In fact, should you spend the night here…you would get a mattress, reindeer skins and a sleeping bag for -28 C. My absolute favourite room was Living With Angels – artist Benny Ekman. I would have felt perfectly safe and secure.
Leya 
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