Reindeer Girls Natural World

Reindeer.

Creatures of the Ice Age.

At home in freezing temperatures, ice and snow.

Every year, they make a spectacular migration

and for centuries, they've been joined on these epic treks by the Sami.

The Sami are reindeer herders of Europe's far north...

..one of the continent's last nomadic peoples.

An ancient and demanding way of life

that still survives in the 21st century.

But modern Sami have more choice than any generation before.

The bright lights of Oslo must seem tempting

compared to this wilderness of ice and snow.

Elle Siri and Inga Triumf are two teenagers

about to embark on a difficult journey.

They will soon have to decide whether the rewards of Sami life

outweigh the hardships,

and whether they'll become the next generation of reindeer herders.

February in Arctic Norway.

The days are short and it's 30 degrees below zero.

This time of year,

every Sami family must round up their reindeer

and drive them into a corral.

BELLS TINKLE

It's a health check to sort out those not fit enough

to make the long migration later in spring.

Old and worn teeth

means the reindeer will be sold for slaughter for meat and hide,

the profit from reindeer herding.

No, the teeth was good.

Good teeth mean a respite, at least until next year.

Good teeth.

Won't sell this reindeer.

BELLS TINKLE

This is May-Torill, Elle's mother and Inga's aunt.

She lives the Sami life with passionate enthusiasm.

Elle and Inga have grown up absorbing this passion for the Arctic

and for these hardy, resilient reindeer.

This far north,

it's too cold and too tough for cows or sheep.

Only a creature that evolved during the Ice Age

can really be at home in these harsh landscapes.

But reindeer are more than just Arctic farm animals.

To survive here, they need their wild instincts.

For this partnership to work,

the Sami have had to adapt to the reindeer's way of life

as much as the reindeer have adapted to the Sami.

In the past, the Sami used reindeer for everything,

from food and clothing to transport and money.

They were nomads, following their herds,

living in reindeer-skin tents called lavvus.

Reindeer are still at the heart of Sami life,

though the Sami have moved with the times.

May-Torill's family live in Kautokeino,

a modern Sami town in Arctic Norway.

But many people still think of the Sami as locked in the past.

We joke with them that we don't have cars

and that we drive only with reindeers.

But we are just normal people.

Not SO normal.

OK, not SO normal, but we are still normal.

One aspect of their life is far from normal.

Every spring, Elle's family leaves Kautokeino

and travels with their herd

on one of the longest migrations still made by any Sami family -

a journey of 250 kilometres through an ice-bound mountain wilderness

to an island off Norway's spectacular Arctic coast.

This difficult journey is never without problems,

though they have no idea just what they'll face this year

as they prepare for their long trek.

THEY SPEAK IN SAMI

We are taking things that we are going to use

when we are going to the migration.

She's helping me.

This is my grandmother.

Elle's grandmother, Berit,

has done this migration more times than she cares to remember,

and in true Sami tradition,

she's passing on her experience to Elle and Inga.

Reindeer are better adapted than the Sami to make these journeys.

Their large hooves are splayed and cup-shaped

to help them walk on snow or ice.

Hooves that also make scoops to dig through the snow to buried lichens,

their meagre staple diet in winter.

And they're perfectly happy in sub-zero temperatures.

The hairs on their coats are hollow and filled with air,

very effective insulation, both for reindeer and Sami.

This is my mum going to wear when we are on the migration.

It's very good when it's cold outside.

This is reindeer skin.

It's very warm and much better than this kind of clothes.

This is what we use into the shoes, so it's warm.

Every part of a reindeer has a different use.

THEY SPEAK IN SAMI

This is from the rein head, reindeer's head.

This is what we use under the shoes.

It's very hard when you walk with them,

it's not so easy to destroy or make holes in it,

we take this with us.

They're its eyes.

Even though they're at home in this extreme climate,

winter is still a hard time for reindeer.

Long before spring, they've eaten all the lichens they can find,

which is one reason they have to migrate to distant summer grounds.

And the females are now heavily pregnant.

This would be a desperate time for them without Sami help,

a real advantage of reindeer and Sami sharing their lives.

Timing the migration is everything.

Leave too early and the mountains could still be impassable.

Too late and the cows might drop their calves before they reach the island.

But exactly when they start isn't up to the family.

The reindeer made their annual treks long before the Sami joined them.

The females know they must reach the summer grounds before calving.

When the time is right,

the reindeer head for the coast, and the family follows.

Understanding the reindeer's natural abilities is crucial to the Sami.

It can be a matter of life and death in the unpredictable Arctic.

I remember one year we was on the migration

and then it become a terrible weather.

It was so bad, you didn't see anything.

But we knew that if we follow the reindeers,

then we are in the right direction.

When the family emerged from that blizzard,

the reindeer's unerring sense of direction

had led them safely through the storm.

What will this year's journey be like?

Three generations of Elle's family work together

to shepherd this vast herd of thousands of animals

safely over the mountains.

This partnership between Sami and reindeer is an ancient one.

8,000 year old rock carvings

show the ancestors of the Sami hunting wild reindeer.

But over time, they learned to exploit the reindeer's instincts

and to control the herds.

Snowmobiles are one part of the modern world that the Sami leapt on.

In the past, all they had were skis and muscle-power.

Controlling the herd is now much easier.

The males don't share the same urgency to migrate as the pregnant cows,

so Elle and Inga make sure that none fall behind.

Even with the luxury of snowmobiles, this is a tough job.

By April, the darkness of winter

has given way to nearly continuous daylight,

long days in the cold and wind.

And before the girls can rest, they have to set up camp.

On migration, they still live in lavvus,

but now they're made of steel and canvas, and much easier to put up.

It takes just a few minutes to build a shelter

from the relentless Arctic wind.

And the snow here is soft enough

for the reindeer to dig for lichens to eat before they rest.

Singing is as much a part of Sami life as reindeer.

These songs are called joiks, songs that express the joy of Sami life.

SHE JOIKS

When you joik, it's to someone or to a mountain.

You joik a mountain...

..peoples, and to dog, reindeer.

SHE JOIKS

It's like how I feel when I drive with scooter, then I joik,

and then the time and the trip is not so long when you joik.

CHILDREN SING

Even the youngest members of the family enjoy these songs.

This is a favourite with Elle's younger brother and sister,

a song about snowflakes.

It says that snowflakes bring the freezing cold,

but also carpet the ground in a protective blanket.

It may be a children's song,

but it says a lot about how the Sami see their Arctic world.

At this time of year, the night only lasts a few hours.

Not much time to sleep.

Day two, and the first of this year's problems.

The weather has been much warmer than usual,

only around minus 15 degrees Celsius,

and the snow is too soft, which is slowing the herd down.

Even worse, the melting snow has uncovered patches of grazing.

The snow is so soft and the reindeers won't go,

they just want to eat.

Every time we go, they want to take a break and eat.

The family has to get the herd moving again.

These days, they can't just rely on the reindeer's instincts.

They have a tight schedule to keep.

The reindeer eventually take the hint.

Over the next few days, they slowly climb into the mountains.

But this year, instead of meeting fierce blizzards,

they find more warm weather, and that's not good.

Other problems that we've been having is that the lakes are melting

and the reindeers cannot come over, because its so big, the lakes,

and we have to find a place where they can go over.

They have to take the long way,

around the edges of the melting lakes, where the ice is still solid.

But it will add a lot of time to the trip,

time that at least gives the family a chance to go ice fishing.

Under their feet are delicious Arctic char,

but to get to them means drilling a hole through the ice.

THEY LAUGH

It's not the right time to fish right now.

But maybe. Who knows?

I'm setting a mark.

ARGH!

It's alive!

There was a little fish.

THEY SPEAK IN SAMI

Ice fishing on migration is something of a tradition.

Before the days of snowmobiles, the more food they could find on the way,

the less they had to drag with them.

Nine days into the journey, they've reached the halfway point.

But thanks to the warm weather, they're running late.

They're now 100 kilometres from the modern world,

and immersed in an ancient way of life.

For Elle's younger brother and sister,

it's a glimpse of the way things were.

Their grandfather, Johan Henrik, is 74.

He's been doing this migration since he was their age

and knows every inch of the way.

Like May-Torill, his enthusiasm for this life is infectious

and is one reason why the whole family make this difficult journey together.

One of the things that is important when we are on the migration

is that the kids can be with their grandfather.

Because he loves to tell them stories.

And the kids really like to hear the stories,

and he has a story for every rock, for every mountain,

for every lake that we pass,

so when we are in the tent and the kids are going to sleep,

then he likes to tell us a story.

When you close your eyes, you hear him

and it's like you are with him on the trip.

This story always thrills the children,

about a wolf that, many years ago, crawled in to Johan Henrik's lavvu

to share the warmth of his fire.

But this story doesn't have a happy ending.

The Sami don't like wolves.

They used to be the bane of their lives.

Johan Henrik used to say when he was with the herd

and the herd started to run,

then they knew that the wolves were around.

And he said his blood turned to ice.

He was really afraid of them.

But in 1950, the government said that the people could hunt them

and they paid 2,500 Norwegian crowns to get rid of them.

So, the people was really going after the wolf,

and that's one of the reasons that you seldom see the wolf now.

There's only a handful of wolves left in the whole of Norway,

so modern Sami don't have to worry about this particular threat

when they sleep at night.

But time is pressing.

As soon as it's light, the herd is pushed on,

to the sound of Johan Henrik's enthusiastic joiking,

loud enough to be heard over his snowmobile.

HENRIK JOIKS

It's four o'clock in the morning,

and it's been a cold night,

and the snow is frozen and it's easy for the reindeer to walk.

They go easily because the snow is so hard now.

Today we are moving them about 20 kilometres.

We have a couple of days before we reach the coast

and it's going down.

We've been up and now the reindeers are going down.

We have stopped here because we have to let the reindeers rest

and we give them some lichen,

so they can eat,

because the snow is frozen,

it's good for the reindeers to walk.

But they don't get food,

so we have to give this and then we give this grass.

So they can eat.

We want to stay here for a couple of hours,

so they can rest and then we go on.

It's a long way.

Ahead of them, at the coast, spring is already well advanced.

After the silence of winter,

the sound of running water fills the air.

But for the family, it's a race against the seasons.

Elle and Inga have left the herd to get to the coast.

The girls went on ahead to meet their grandmother,

who drove the long route around the mountains from Kautokeino.

The problem is the busy E6 road,

which crosses the reindeer's ancient migration route.

Yeah, people must stand there to stop the cars, and down there,

and they must have Sami clothes, so they know why to stop

because the reindeers are going over the road.

While the girls prepare to stop the traffic,

the herd is on its way out of the mountains,

and not a moment too soon.

The rivers have started to flow again.

Off the mountains and back in birch forest, the family is more nervous.

Predators are tracking the herd.

Any reindeer that drop their calves early

will attract the attention of a wolverine

May-Torill calls it "the lonely hunter",

a habit that helps it to survive

in modern Norway.

The herd has to hit the exact section of road

that Elle and Inga are ready to close,

so they're led by a tame reindeer, called a heargi in Sami,

another reindeer instinct exploited by the Sami.

The herd follows exactly in the heargi's footsteps.

The last of the herd is safely across,

but the journey is far from over.

With no snow, they have to follow the herd on foot,

down a long peninsula that juts out towards the summer island of Arnoya.

Elle, Inga and Berit have gone ahead

and have several hours before the herd catches up,

so in true Sami tradition, they cook up a snack of reindeer.

It'll be another short night.

For the Sami, time isn't determined by clocks, but by reindeer.

It's well before dawn when the herd arrives

and is driven into a corral on the shore.

It's taken nearly three weeks to get this far.

The whole herd has arrived safely,

but exactly how many are milling around the corral?

Only Elle's father knows.

Asking a Sami how many reindeer he owns is as rude as asking someone

how much they have in their bank account.

It's just not done.

And this is why the family were so keen

to stick to their tight schedule.

Another modern aid to reindeer herding,

a converted car ferry, hired to take their herd across to the island.

The pregnant cows are close to giving birth, and it might not look it,

but this is the most stress-free way to get them to the island.

It'll take several trips to ferry the whole herd across.

And after three weeks with little sleep,

there's yet another long day ahead for the girls.

I think we are finished about 12 o'clock tomorrow.

But at least the warm and calm weather makes the crossings easier.

You see the sea.

It's no wind.

The boat is going in schedule.

It has been really a nice trip,

and I hope when we get the last group there,

then the reindeers can start their holiday.

And when they come to island,

the grass is growing,

and I hope that the reindeers have a good time on the island,

and that we get many calves.

So, we'll see. I really hope.

The island of Arnoya is large, 10 kilometres by 20 kilometres,

and the herd can wander where they will over the mountains.

The climate this close to the ocean is milder,

giving the grass here a head start.

Plenty of good grazing for the reindeer to recover

from the lean winter.

But that's only one reason why the family and their herd have travelled on such a hard journey.

The main reason is that there are no predators

like wolves and wolverines on the island.

The only danger here is from above.

And one of the things we have to look up for is the eagles,

because there's a lot of them on the island.

White-tailed sea eagles

are big enough to take the young reindeer calves.

And golden eagles also patrol the skies, looking out for newborns.

That's one of the problems that we have to handle,

but if you are close to the reindeers, then it's possible

that you can save some of the reindeer calves.

The Sami protect the reindeer,

but the reindeer can look after themselves.

Reindeer calves are unique amongst deer.

Within a few hours of birth,

they're on their feet and following their mothers around.

Unlike other deer, the females have antlers,

and keep them longer than the males to protect the newborn calves.

Summer bathes the island in 24 hours of daylight,

fuelling the growth of nutritious grass.

The calves, fed on the richest milk of any deer,

are big enough to be safe from eagles

so their mothers drop their antlers and start to grow new ones.

Over summer, Elle is back in school in Kautokeino.

But this is no ordinary school.

It's a Sami reindeer school,

where the pupils are taught the most modern techniques of reindeer management,

as well as the old Sami traditions.

THEY SPEAK IN SAMI

Here we have several courses for the students.

This year, I think we have about 110...120 students,

and five or six courses.

Three of them are vocational studies

and one is for reindeer herding.

The very latest technology is added to the long Sami tradition.

Sami children own their own reindeer in the family herd,

and recognise them from a unique set of marks cut into the ears.

And the internet is the perfect way to keep track

of a bewildering variety of ear marks.

This is Inga's earmark

and this is mine.

I got my ear mark when I was seven years old.

And I got mine when I was three years old.

Summer in the Arctic is short.

Before long, autumn is here.

A brief display of vivid colour before winter returns.

The reindeer have been feeding well all summer

and there are plenty of healthy calves.

Time for Elle and her family to return to the island

for the next part of the yearly cycle.

But first they have to find their herd,

which has scattered all over the island.

SHE SPEAKS IN SAMI

So, now you have to look everywhere for the reindeers.

They could be everywhere

but they are on the highest places now.

Getting the herd back together at this time of year

means fighting the reindeer's instincts.

In the herd, you have the biggest male.

He's the boss for each group,

and he's going to get the female reindeers in smaller groups,

and then he takes them away.

And he can go on the highest mountain

and he won't let them go down before he's done his job.

So, we have to get the reindeers together

and get them over to the mainland before the mating has started.

May-Torill and Elle have found most of their herd

and radioed their position to the rest of the family.

With an hour or two to spare before the round-up begins,

there's plenty of time to light a fire and cook up another reindeer delicacy...

..bone marrow.

It's really nice, it's delicious.

But you have to get used to it.

Once we were moving with the reindeers

and we had a doctor from Netherlands,

and one of the things that he ate was this,

and he said it was really delicious but he got really pain.

The stomach,

it was really painful for him because he wasn't used to eat this.

So he had to... He just had to go for a walk,

many times.

In autumn, the family switches from snowmobiles to quad bikes,

more 21st century technology that makes their job a bit easier.

And a lot faster.

They are really moving fast with the reindeers.

A long time ago, they used to walk.

They used to say that to go to this mountain would use two or three days.

Now, they are moving in a couple of hours.

So it's going to get much faster

than it did for 20 or 30 years ago.

It's important that we don't get all the reindeers in the same time.

We have to get about 300 or 400 reindeers in the corral.

So, we get the ear marks on the reindeer

and slakt the reindeers that we need.

We cannot wait till it's getting too dark.

So, we have to be finished before six o'clock.

So, the perfect thing is to have about 300 reindeers in the corral

at the same time.

They have to wait until all the calves find their mothers again.

Otherwise, no-one will know who owns which calves.

Elle's father, Nils Johan,

will find out how well the family herd has done.

But first, they've got to catch the calves

and, at the same time,

spot whose marks are cut into the mother's ears.

Then they can mark the calves.

We have mine, my father, mother,

and sister and brother...

..and grandmother's mark I have to look after.

As well as ear-marking,

it's a chance to give the calves an anti-parasite medicine

to condition them for their first Arctic winter.

One more!

Very good.

As work proceeds, the family is optimistic.

Yes, it seems like it's a good calf year.

So we have to see, is it true?

When my dad marks a calf,

he take a piece from the ear and put it in a pocket.

One more!

And after we finished in the corral,

then he counts how many calves he has marked.

And then he knows,

and when he knows the number, he throw it away into the corral.

So, nobody else knows how many he has.

One more!

One more!

We have almost marked the calves,

so we should be finished by an hour, I think.

Then this part of the herd is driven out of the corral

and down to the shore.

Only this time, there's no boat.

Now the females are no longer pregnant,

they can swim to the mainland.

As in spring, the reindeer know it's time to go

and don't need much encouragement to start their autumn journey.

Good summer grazing has left the reindeer in excellent condition.

They cross the kilometre-wide channel easily

to reach the mainland.

And tomorrow, the family will bring the rest of the herd

out of the mountains, mark them,

and swim them across to the mainland.

But the autumn weather is changeable,

and the next day brings the first breath of winter

and rough weather,

too rough to risk swimming the herd across the channel.

All the family can do is wait it out and hope it doesn't last too long.

The weather is still bad.

Should be on the mainland now.

SHE JOIKS

It's still too rough at sea, but time is running out.

So the family decide to risk bringing in the rest of the herd.

In thick mud and freezing rain,

they catch and mark the last of this year's calves.

They've no choice but to risk the crossing.

The reindeer are nervous,

but they're driven by a strong urge to return to their winter grounds.

And once a leader takes the plunge, the rest follow instinctively.

But Nils Johan is more nervous.

The Sami say their money roams about,

and Nils Johan is watching his family's life-savings

swim across the rough water.

All the animals have made it.

No casualties.

Another successful year for the partnership of reindeers and Sami.

And as the herd makes its way back over the mountains to Kautokeino,

it's been another year of learning

for the next generation of reindeer herders.

The more May-Torill's family experience their unique heritage,

the greater the chance they will choose the life of a reindeer herder.

I really hope that one of our kids, when they have got the education,

that they can work with the reindeer and do what we do now.

Because the life with the reindeers,

it's really...amazing, and it's really exciting.

Thanks to this enthusiasm,

Elle and Inga say they want to remain reindeer herders,

following their herds through Norway's dramatic seasons.

But this isn't just an emotional attachment to an old way of life.

It's a very practical, hard-headed decision.

Sami life still flourishes in modern Europe

because the Sami make money from their herds.

Turned into luxury meat and skins,

these animals generate a good income.

But even in the modern world, reindeer herding is hard work.

The Sami say they live their lives as the reindeer decide.

A way of life that will survive only as long as each new generation

can see the enchantment in being the reindeer herders of the north.

It is important that they are proud of the work that they do

and they can say that we are Sami people,

and we work with the reindeers.

And we like the job that we're doing.