Eira

August in Sámerica

/ Julie Whitehorn
At 01:19, you can hear Sandra Ericksen Eira joiked by Hans Ole Eira, Sámi Grand Prix winner (introduced by singer and actor Mikkel Gaup)

The uptick in Covid cases in Washington state means most of us are back to donning masks indoors, avoiding crowds, and washing our hands extra long. Just when we were getting out and about! It doesn’t have to be this way. Please persuade your friends and relatives to consult their doctors about vaccines, not social media, and then boost their immunity (and yours) by thanking them and staying in touch. Community boosts immunity!

Our ancestors lost so many of their loved ones to smallpox, pertussis, cholera, tuberculosis, influenza, you name it. I made a list based on death records for my own family and it was hearbreaking. So many children! Let’s do all we can to protect our most vulnerable.

Some of the events are online only. Follow Seattle Sámi on Facebook for the most current info.

August Events

6 pm, Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Sámi Parliament Member Sandra Andersen Eira, Leif Erickson Lodge, Ballard

Sandra will help install the lodge’s Sámi flag, talk about her role in the Sámidiggi, work as a sea captain, and whatever else she would like to share. There will be time for Q&A (maybe we can persuade her to tell how her home town inspired the film Ofelaš/Pathfinder.) A relief to some of you, we will NOT be singing the anthem together (thanks, Covid). We will listen instead. But, there will be cake! Free. In person only. No need to register. Questions? Email JoAn Rudo at the Lodge.

6 pm, Friday, August 13, 2021

Sámi Dreams, Photo Exhibit Reception, Nordia House, Portland

The exhibit is excellent, and no doubt the talk by photographer Randall Hyman & curator Max Stevenson will be fascinating. Hyman has been around the world as a Nat Geo photog. That said, it’s unfortunate the only Sámi included are two dimensional. We can all help our Nordic institutions adhere to the principle of “nothing about us without us” by flexing our memberships. (Join up to speak up!) Free. Online (registration required) and in person.

2:30 pm, Tuesday, August 17, 2021

A Night of Poetry From Fulbright Poets to Romania, Burkina Faso, and Finland

Two friends active in the Sámerican community are among the Fulbright poets sharing their work. Both did their Fulbrights in Finland, and both are extraordinarily talented. Tim Frandy is also the father of a charming toddler, professor of folklore, and translator of Inari Sámi Folklore, the first polyvocal anthology of Sámi oral tradition ever published in English. Cheryl Fish is professor of English, an essayist (from whose work about Sámi artistic response to resource extraction I learned the term “elegiac ecojustice”) and poet whose recent book, The Sauna is Full of Maids, romps through Finnish sauna culture and friendship. Free. Online only (register at link).

Do you want to share an event? Feel free to contact me here.

Sámi Dreams

/ Julie Whitehorn / Leave a comment
Photo by Randall Hyman of Ana Maria Eira and her reindeer

If you live in or near Portland, Oregon, don’t miss Randall Hyman’s “talking” photo exhibit called Sámi Dreams, September through November, 2021 at the Nordia House, 8800 SW Oleson Road.

This stunning collection of portraits and interviews includes audio by the portrait subjects. It’s as if they are in the same room with you. The photographer and curator Randall Hyman is an accomplished observer of the Arctic, with four decades covering natural history and travel topics for Smithsonian, National Geographic, Discover, American History, The Atlantic, Science, Wildlife Conservation, et al.

As a 2013 Fulbright Scholar in Norway and guest of the Norwegian Polar Institute, Hyman covered field science, resource development and climate change in the Arctic for a number of organizations and publications. In 2015, he was the distinguished Josephine Patterson Albright Fellow of the Alicia Patterson Foundation, expanding on his coverage of Arctic climate change. He continues to focus on Arctic topics and lecture on polar climate change across the United States and Europe.

The exhibit was most recently in Minneapolis. I hope our National Nordic Museum will consider hosting it next; it deserves a wide audience.

Bearaš, family

/ Julie Whitehorn / Leave a comment

In 2019, following a wonderful reception to my “roots talk” (and singing of the Sámi Sova Lavlla) at the Leif Erickson Lodge, the Board of Directors voted unanimously to install a Sámi flag in the hall. To my knowledge this Sons of Norway Lodge is the third Nordic institution in Seattle to display our flag, after the Swedish Club, which has flown one above their portico for many years, and the National Nordic Museum, which includes several in its displays, such as the one below.

If all goes according to plan, a Sámi flag will be installed when Sandra Eira speaks at the Leif Erickson on August 4, 2021.

Display at National Nordic Museum, Seattle

If the walls could speak, I might ask them about my relative Anna Moen from Narvik, Norway. According to relatives, Anna was one of the lodge’s first female members (it opened to men in 1903 and to women in 1927). A Ballard resident, she was also a member of the Daughters of Norway and Nordlandslaget Nordlyset, whose archives are now at Pacific Lutheran University. (Perhaps a student would be interested in searching them for Sámi references.)

Below is a poem I wrote about Anna for last year’s POPO project, using an entirely optional formula of starting each new poem with the last line of one received.

Making a new home,
Anna from Narvik
never knew her áhkku’s
birthname or the kin
left behind in Sweden
Erasure being the point.
So two blood cousins
crossing Market Street
In 1947, could spy
the replica of a smile.
Become suddenly bereft.
Rootless Anna,
Orphan Clara!
Allow me to stop you
On this Duwamish deerpath
and join your tiny hands
Meet, dear foremothers
This is our birthright:
Bearaš, family.

If you like to write and receive short poems (and support the USPS) sign up for this year’s project.