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We had been in e-mail contact about our project for a couple of months, but the first thing Jonathan Coleman did, when we met him in person, was buy us a cell phone. He is a wildlife biologist at the University of Oslo whose work with reindeer includes general behavior observation, power line and windmill park encroachment, train fatalities, and reindeer/sheep interactions. We flew north to Alta with him (and the phone) two days later, accompanied by two assistants: a bird flu researcher from London and a Norwegian chimney sweep. The five of us drove to Kautokeino, two hours south of Norway’s northern coast, where Jonathan introduced us to the Gaup’s, a Sámi reindeer herding family who immediately handed us a hind quarter of fresh meat. He also introduced us to Marianne, a botanist who’s letting us stay in her incredible cabin, and bought us all a round of beer at the local pub. Then he and his assistants were gone, further north to count reindeer scat at the sight of a future windmill park.

So we have been living here in Kautokeino, learning to cook reindeer meat, throwing snowballs at children and playing cowboy. District #27 recently moved their reindeer 150 km from the coast to their fall pasture. We spent the first few days at a corral with approximately 6,000 barking, grunting and stampeding reindeer (with bells on). People from other districts came to lasso out “visiting” reindeer that had mixed with the herd over summer. The district’s herders also vaccinated and slaughtered some animals. Around the corral, herders set up traditional teepee shaped tents, called laavos. They parked their cars, ATVs and dirt bikes beside them. Inside the lavvos, people napped on skins, chewed on reindeer fat and sent text messages on their cell phones (we would have been doomed without Jonathan’s purchase). We have met many people here – where old meets new and scientific knowledge meets tradition – with feet in both camps.

Yesterday, we got to smoke meat in a lavvo with Ingrid Mari-Anne S. Gaup, a mother of five, reindeer herder, teacher and freelance journalist. While we have been interviewing and photographing her and her family, she has been doing the same with us! We were featured on the front page and center spread of the local Katukeino paper. Govvideaba dálkkádatrievdama reads the headline in Sámi, which translates to “Photographing climate change”.