Crossing Borders: Travel In The Arctic North

On setting out, I was worried for having forgotten my passport. Inge said it was fine if I had an id. with me since my name was computerized. Among the many inconveniences one experiences in Africa are those of crossing frontiers. Your safe passage is never a guarantee even when you provide border security with every requirement they ask of you. I grew up with this apprehension - oftentimes generalizing it wherever I went. Here in Norway, I did not want to risk a note against my name on the immigration computers.

The entrancing voice of Mari Boine filled us as Inge waved to the immigration police and we went past. There were just two of them, sitting in a little gazebo facing the highway and chatting. The border was wide open. There was no sign to indicate we were leaving one country to another.

Bjorn Inge, the young and untiring mayor or Mandalen, was taking Trude and me to visit a Finnish reindeer-herding friend. The landscape was wide and the white and the sparkling grainy snow lay endless. Never have I seen the skies so open, blue and flaked, arcing over an undulating tree-bare earth. The air itself was fresh, almost crisp, and the frozen lakes had merged with the valleys and mountains in a single sweep.

My colleague was also moved by the experience of the Ð''winter-spring' so that we frequently passed the camera to each other to record the landscape. The trip awakened in Inge intimate memories of childhood, which came over the rev of the engine and Boine's voice. These reminisces informed us of his deep attachment to the artic north.

The SÐ"ÐŽmi had known no boundaries before. Reindeer herders would cross the frontiers after pastures; fami-lies and relations would visit one another on both sides and without questionÐ'.... Border lines had come leaving much to be desired as they trapped people with close bonds behind different countries, a situation not untypical to my continent.

The reindeer keeper was not at his lavvo so we toured the seasonal camping grounds. Snowmobiles were immobilized about the yard. Wooden racks stood against the sky, some sporting a few reindeer skulls, others where fresh skins were hung to dry. A few animal parts on the snow kept a bevy of healthy flies busy.

We walked to another herder's lavvo as a yoik from the wagon's speakers pierced the air, leaving it with a nostalgic strain. We found a lone dog chained near the door Ð'- the only living presence in a beautiful yet desolate landscape. Every object looked solitary and stark against a white and blue canvas, provoking images from Salvador Dali in my mind.

I took the camera from Trude to appropriate symbol and icon from the empty cross stakes and racks in the yard and the colorful deerskins that stuck on the walls. The owner soon came, throttling down in a snow-mobile. He was dressed in camping gear, a pair of thick-glasses, and looked tipsy. He took us indoors.

He had lost his son to the cities years ago. Now that he was beset by blindness, he lived in fear of losing his reindeer.