Below, a new music video and links to help you celebrate all month long. Enjoy!

Arctic Highways. This Facebook live event includes remarks by the Ambassador of Sweden to the United States, Karin Olofsdotter, a special presentation of the exhibition “Arctic Highways,” interviews with the artists, and performances (Sara Ajnnak) from City Hall in Stockholm, Sweden. 3 pm, February 6, free.

VILDÁ in concert streaming February 6 through February 17, free.

Älven min vän (The River My Friend) film, streaming online February 10, 2 pm PST, free. A portrait of the lives of four Sámi women and their relationship to the Lule River in Sweden. The film shows the consequences of the forced resettlement of Sámi people who were displaced from their land because of the construction of river dams and were alienated from their indigenous culture and way of life (such as reindeer husbandry, clothing, language, food and music). At the same time, the film shows the deep relationship between the women and the river. Register for this free event and receive a link to the movie. Then join the Zoom event to meet the director Hannah Ambühl.

Nordic Spirits Second Friday: Are You What You Wear? on Friday, February 11, 7:30 p.m. PT, free. A virtual presentation presented by Prof. Thomas DuBois of University of Wisconsin-Madison to learn about Sámi traditional dress. Free, registration required.

Nordiska’s Book Club: Black Fox Thursday, February 24, 6 pm PT, free. Port Townsend author Barbara Sjoholm’s book Black Fox: A Life of Emilie Demant Hatt, Artist and Ethnographer is the subject of this month’s book club by the Nordiska shop in Poulsbo. Though not Sámi herself, Emilie Demant Hatt became closely acquainted with a variety of Sámi cultures during her travels in Sápmi in the early 1900s. Free.

Nordic Lights Film Festival online February 25 – March 5 (tickets required). Included are these short films:

• Indigenous Police/Koftepolitiet | Egil Pedersen | Norway | 2021 | 12 minutes Koftepolitiet is a Sámi short film told with humor and political sting. It is an identity satire about how people, both the Sámi and the majority population, consciously and unconsciously define what is the “right” way to be Sámi.

• Svonni vs the Swedish Tax Agency/ Svonni vs Skatteverket | Maria Fredriksson | Sweden/Sapmi | 5 minutes A Sámi woman tries to convince the Swedish Tax Agency that she has the right to make a tax deduction for the purchase of a dog. Why can’t the Swedish authorities understand that Rikke is a herding tool and not a pet? A humorous short documentary about cultural clashes and the struggle to practice Sámi culture in today’s Sweden.

Antiphony Book Discussion, online February 26, 3 pm PT, Free) The Swedish American Museum in Chicago, Illinois, hosts a book club that reads a wide range of books from the Nordic countries. Antiphony by Laila Stien (translated from the Norwegian by John Weinstock) is a novel about a woman who goes to Northern Norway and becomes acquainted with three generations of Sámi women.

UPDATE!

If you have roots in northern Sweden, don’t miss this lovely Sámi Day program. The trusting, upturned faces of the children, filmed at the Sámeskola in Gällivare, brought tears to my eyes and a familiar mix of joy and grief. Some of their ancestors and mine undoubtedly attended “lappskola” together in the village, in a darker age (it ran from 1756 to 1912). The priest Lars Solomon Engelmark complained in 1804 that my morfars farfar Erkki (who was somewhere between the ages of 6 and 11) was “mindre beskedlig i sitt uppträdande,” poorly behaved. A generation later, the priest Lars Levi Laestadius recorded the expense of educating Erkki’s child: “5 riksdaler.” The family soon moved to Tärendö, where my grandfather was born. If like me you can’t parse the Swedish subtitles, skip to 23:24 for a greeting from the Sámediggi (the handsome guy in black is my cousin Frederik Österling), then stay tuned for the singer Astrid Lindstrand Tuorda (who some of you will remember from NaNu 2019 in Seattle, when she and her dad Tor joiked so powerfully at the campfire). Her rendition of the Sámi anthem is simple, soft, and pure, like snow falling on Dundret. Enjoy. The light is returning.