As part of our curriculum of bachelor in Arctic Adventure Tourism, our department arranged 3 days of field trip to “The Golden Route of Sápmi”. This route runs through four municipalities of Finnmark county, they are Alta, Karasjok, Porsanger and Kvalsund. This trip helped me to know more about indigenous people (Sámi), their culture, beliefs, lifestyles, roles on tourism development etc.
On the first day, we visited Mazi, did Cávzo Safari, river boat tour to Máze Sion, Sápmi Park, The Sámi Museum and spent the night at Karasjok Camping.
On the second day of our field trip, we visited The Sámi Knife at Karasjok Camping, The Sámi Parliament and Sámi Centre of Contemporary Art. Our next destination was Lakselv, which is about 75 km from Karasjok. We left the Sami Capital (Karasjok) at around 15:00 and reached Lakselv (administrative center of Porsanger municipality) at around 16:00. We followed the highway route E6. On the way we passed through many lakes, mountains and rivers. The views from bus window of these lakes, mountains, rivers and colorful autumn trees were simply beautiful and mesmerizing. It was good weather and tree leaves were golden and rusty as autumn is already here. After some time, we crossed the bridge over the Idjajavri lake at it’s narrowest part. The view from the bridge was simply breathtaking with lake on both side of the road. We continued the journey and I was enjoying the view of birds flying on the sky, herds of reindeer, hay bales wrapped in plastic film, cow and horse farm on the roadside. After travelling about 20 minutes we passed through two big lakes named Øvrevann and Vuolitjavri and other countless small lakes. Then most part of our journey was alongside the river Lakselva. The area is popular for salmon, trout, Arctic char and grayling fishing throughout the summer months. Besides great fishing, Lakselva flows through a very lush and scenic valley, to meet Barents Sea at Porsangerfjorden.
Along the highway there were few small human settlements. Some parts of the highway were under maintenance, workers were maintaining the fences alongside of the highway. Throughout the journey I was discussing with my friend about sámi, their culture, traditions, costumes, food etc. everything that we already visited and were going to visit. I got to know that Sámi people are so much connected to the nature. The more I got to know about Sámi, the more I was curious to know about them.
After about an hour of bus ride we reached to Lakselv Centrum. We stopped there and went to Circle K store. I was hungry so I bought some cookies. The weather was good. The temperature was 17°c. It was not very cold as we expected it to be. There were many shops and stores as it was the administrative center of Porsanger municipality. While enjoying my cookies I quickly google searched about Porsanger and got to know that Porsanger municipality borders northwest to Kvalsund and Måsøy, north to North Cape, east to Lebesby, south to Karasjok, and west to Alta and is Norway’s third largest municipality. After short stop at Lakselv Sentrum we drove to our next destination for the day, Indre Billefjord. It was a comfortable bus ride.