The year is 1851. Nora and Willa, the offspring of Lars Laestadius, are situated within a modest village in Sápmi, formerly known as Lapland by those unfamiliar with the region. Laestadius holds a significant place in history as a writer, temperance supporter, and founder of a significant religious revivalist movement. His family shares a good relationship with the Sámi. Nonetheless, Laestadius is keen for his girls to wed Swedish men. Willa has her sights set on Uppsala to find her future husband but falls in love with reindeer herder Ivvár, a classic hero; masculine, alluring, cryptic. As such, her journey shifts from Uppsala to a Sámi group’s summer migration to the Norwegian Sea.
Willa encounters Ivvár near the Skibotn village, a prominent marketplace back then. “The vendors of the Skibotn market, including the Swedes, the Kvens, the Finns, the Norwegians, the Russians, and the Sámi, brought and sought varying products – such as butter, meat, metal, and cloth. Each group spoke a different language, with most men being bilingual or even trilingual…”
This literary work offers a plethora of ethnographic observation about the Sámi lifestyle, their residences, fare, traditions, faith, the regional scenery, and more crucially, historical data about their colonisation, woven subtly into the storyline. However, at its heart, is the romance of Willa and Ivvár, delicately and ingeniously outlined with every twist and turn.
The love story that unfolds during their summer, perfectly interweaves with the magical depiction of the Arctic landscape, creating a compelling lyrical masterpiece. There are elements in the novel’s climactic conclusion that evoke memories of the closing moments of Njal’s Saga, making it perhaps overly dramatic. However, this grandeur is rightly deserved by this voluminous novel offering a rhythmic narrative voice and radiant language, culminating in a tragic finale. The book is an absolute marvel.
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, the distinguished author, recently published her books, Selected Stories (Blackstaff, 2023) and Well, You Don’t Look It (Salmon, 2024), both co-edited by Michaela Schrage Früh.”.