The year of the Inari reindeer
The fawn are born in may, often on snow. If it is warm, the young grow fast and the reindeer will get fresh food: roots, sprouts and buds of leaves. The fawn can bear the cold, but a lot of snow can make moving harder and slow down the reindeer's recovery of the long winter.
In spring, some reindeer owners in Inari gather their female reindeer (vaadin) into breeding fences. The fences are big and movable and allow the constant availability of food and water for all kinds of weather. Supplementary feeding, hay, lichen and commercial silage is also given to the animals. The newborn fawn are marked with their owner's earmarks after which they are let out together with their mothers, at the latest in the beginning of June. The females shed their antlers a few days after they have given birth.
Others earmark their fawn later in June or July when the reindeer gather in big herds to avoid räkkä, mosquitoes and other blood-sucking insects, which are plenty in the Inari summer. The herds are shepherded into corrals or marking fences built for the purpose.
For the rest of the summer, the reindeer run free. They roam in their pastures always looking for the best food available. In the late summer and autumn the reindeer prefer mushroom. Feeding on them they quickly gain weight. The better the nutrition status and bigger the subcutaneous fat layer is in the beginning of the winter, the better they survive it in good shape.
In autumn, when the reindeer are at their fattest and have ceased to eat green food, starts the slaughter season. The round-ups, however, are normally not held until the reindeer have mated in peace and when there is snow on the ground to protect the lichen from the trample. The reindeer owners slaughter a few for their own household, though. At this time the meat has a strong taste and a thick layer of delicious fat on top. The treat of the season are salted roasts and ribs, smoked in a tent or laavu.
In autumn the winter fur of the reindeer is still short and at its darkest. The autumn fur on the legs of the reindeer is valuable handicraft material. The finest säpikkäät, gaiters, and fur shoes, nutukkaat, are made of them.
The male reindeer use a big part of their extra nutrition in the rutting season. When the females' heat is approaching, the males gather them into a harem, a parttio. Keeping a parttio together and driving away other males is hard work, and the male reindeer do not have much time to eat. When the mating is over, the parttios dissolve and the reindeer start to wander to their winter pastures. The males have lost weight and they drop their antlers after the mating.
The round-up period starts at the end of October. The gathering of the reindeer depends on the winter. If there is no snow and the area is suitable, ATVs are used. If there is snow and the waters have frozen, snowmobiles are used. Some herding co-operatives use an assisting helicopter. In many places the terrain is so hard to access that the gathering cannot be started before it has snowed enough.
The round-up is the biggest happening of the reindeer herding year. The co-operatives have their own corrals. Many reindeer owners from several co-operatives gather to identify the animals. The reindeer are brought to the corral in big herds and there is a lot of work to be done. The owners separate the animals that are let to live from those that will be slaughtered. The ones left are counted according to sex, age and owner's earmark, vaccinated against parasites and transported to the winter pastures. The ones chosen are butchered on clean snow or transported to the slaughterhouses. The round-ups continue often until Christmas. At this time of the year there is so little daylight that if all reindeer have not been gathered by then, the work is continued in January. In the late winter some of the meat is salted and hung outside to dry in the wind and frost.
From the round-ups the reindeer owners who shepherd their animals together (tokkakunta) transport the reindeer to their own winter pastures. The reindeer are looked after and some times moved as well, but they have to find their own food. They dig lichen, hay and spray from under the snow. Digging the thick snow is hard work. The females let their last summer's fawn eat from the same snow hole, which they defend against others with their antlers. The males who have lost their antlers usually prefer to stay out of their way. Later in winter, when there is more snow, the reindeer start to look for horsetail lichen and other types of lichen that grow on trees. Many reindeer owners bring hay and forage as supplementary nutrition to the herds in spring. When the snow melts, the reindeer are moved to their summer pastures.
In winter the herds are kept more or less apart in order to regulate the pressure of grazing on the pastures, to protect the reindeer against predators, to find the reindeer that have been killed by predators and to arrange supplementary feeding if needed. The herders that collect their females into breeding fences later in the spring spend the most time with their herd. In order to make sure that all the females are caught into the fences, the herds are gathered and separated in an additional round-up in the spring.
The season for reindeer races is from the middle of February to the beginning of April. The racing reindeer are kept on a strict diet from the round-ups on. The training is started in January, when the weather is starting to get warmer. During the season, there is a race every weekend somewhere in Lapland, the biggest ones being four cup-races. The season culminates in the Inari Reindeer Kingship Race, organised by the Association of Reindeer Herding Co-operatives.
Reindeer language
vasa – a reindeer fawn from its birth to the next autumn
kermikkä – a fawn from the first to the second autumn
vuongeli – a female reindeer from the second to the third autumn
urakka – a male from the second to the third autumn
vaami, vaadin – an adult female
hirvas – an adult male
pailakka – a castrated male
härkä – a racing reindeer or one trained for transporting people and goods
vasotusaita – a breeding fence, a metal fence where the vaadin bear their fawn and the fawn are marked
räkkä – blood-sucking and parasitic insects
rykimä – rutting season
erotus – the round-up where reindeer are "read" (counted to their owners) and separated into the ones to be kept and the ones to be slaughtered
siula – a large fence directing the reindeer to the round-up corral
parttio – a small herd
tokka – a big herd
etto – the gathering of the reindeer
lukea – "reading"; counting the number
laskea – to let go
nylkeä – to slaughter
tokkakunta – the reindeer owners that herd their reindeer together
ratkoa – to separate the reindeer to their owners
nulppo – a hirvas that has shed its antlers
An occupation for whole families
Reindeer herding provides occupation for whole families. There are harder and lighter tasks that demand many kinds of knowledge and skills. Each family member has their place and responsibilities. Nowadays, the expenses of reindeer herding are high and the profits low, and many families have other jobs as well. One of the parents can have a full-time job or both can work part-time when they have time. In the lap of generations this can distain the rest of the family of reindeer herding and it will only become the reindeer owners personal work, by-occupation or hobby.
For the biggest tasks, the work of the whole herding co-operative is needed. The members, from young to old, work together in the round-ups and marking the fawn. Working together is a lot of fun and keeps up the traditional knowledge and social networks.