Quiz for Responsible Tourists Visiting Sámi Homeland in Finland

Each leg of the reindeer calf represents one element of sustainability and carrying capacity. The left foreleg symbolises the social dimension of the living cultural landscape where the reindeer calf lives. The social dimension ensures the physical and mental wellbeing of the local community. The right foreleg embodies cultural dimension, and its natural intergenerational transmission from yesterday via today to tomorrow. The left hind leg stands for ecological dimension in the form of preservation of vitally important biodiversity. The right hind leg represents economical dimension for continued viability of local communities. For the calf to have a safe path in the Arctic cultural landscape from today to future, all its legs need to stay unharmed.

Touristic utilisation of Sámi culture and tourism taking place in Sámi Homeland is not sustainable if even one of the elements of sustainable development or carrying capacities is not met. If even one of the calf’s legs is missing or injured, the future of the calf’s survival in the nature is compromised, both today and tomorrow.

Please, take into consideration that you are visiting local people’s home. Please, respect their domestic privacy. Treat the people and the surrounding environment at your travel destination as you wish visitors coming to your home to treat your own domestic privacy and your home environment.

The health, wellbeing and the feeling of security of the local people, especially the ones who belong to different risk groups, is utterly important. In Sámi society, the elderly people are extremely valued cultural and linguistic bearers. The significant number of elderly Sámi live in Sámi Homeland.

What may be “wilderness” for visitors, is home for the local Sámi people, and for many, also a source of livelihood or subsistence economy unconnected to tourism. While there may be no visible signs of human presence in nature, there is not a single place or area in Sámi Homeland that does not have a Sámi name and that has no cultural use and significance related to a season. Treat the living cultural landscape and all its living creatures with respect and consideration. Leave no trace. The obligation to keep pets on leash is established in Hunting and Public Order Acts.

It is important that local communities’ everyday life and festivities are respected by encountering the locals as human beings, not as objects or exhibits. Local people do not wear Sámi dress for the visitors to photograph them. Please remember that there is a human being inside that dress who does not necessarily want to end up in strangers’ home albums or social media.

Culturally safe Sámi tourism means, that the Sámi involved in tourism may, with equity, make known their own story that represents their culture according to their own worldviews. In culturally safe Sámi tourism, local community’s reality and truth may differ greatly from visitors’ preconceptions about the Sámi. Culturally safe visitors do not objectify local people. In culturally safe tourism destination, the local community may practise their culture without being a target of visitors’ gaze or cameras, or being treated as a prop or background in their own living cultural landscape. In culturally safe tourism destination, the visitors take into consideration and respect the fact that they are visiting someone else’s home, a place where the locals’ everyday life happens, undisturbed.

The productisation and visibility of Sámi and Sámi culture in tourism must be based on what the Sámi community itself accepts as an authentic Sámi culture. Symbols of Sámi culture have been productised and represented in tourism exploiting Sámi culture in Finland for decades. For a long time, the productisation of Sámi culture has been both defined and executed by outsiders. In the worst cases, the incorrect, primitivised image of the Sámi, that is widespread in tourism exploiting Sámi culture, offends and objectifies the Sámi community. Responsible visitors may have a positive impact on the wellbeing of the destination by choosing responsible and ethically sustainable Sámi products and services.

The Sámi, Sámi culture and Sámi language are constantly visible in tourism as passive decorations and props, local colour, or as exotic and primitive objects removed from their cultural context. The Sámi and Sámi culture should have an active role in tourism that represents their own worldviews.

Not all the people who wear the Sámi dress are employed by tourism industry. Responsible visitors respect their privacy and allow them to live their everyday life and festivities without negative effects of tourism.

Borrowed traditions are misappropriated from another culture and rooted in a foreign cultural landscape through, for example, the travel industry. Borrowed traditions are especially damaging when they are in conflict with a tradition that is an original and authentic part of the culture of the area. An example of a particularly damaging and culturally unsustainable borrowed tradition is touristic dog sledding. Especially in certain areas, this practice is in strong conflict with reindeer herding, one of the cornerstones of Sámi culture, causing direct or indirect damage to this traditional livelihood.

In the Sámi worldview, people, nature and language are not seen as separate entities. For example, the Sámi language, stories, music and the most visible cultural symbols such as the Sámi dress and Sámi handicrafts are closely connected, among other things, with traditional Sámi livelihoods. Together they form an inseparable entity in which each element relies on the others in order to remain vital and, thus, enabling the preservation, development and transmission of Sámi culture to future generations. If one element of Sámi culture were to disappear, or if its area of activity were to be limited, this would have an immediate impact elsewhere.

Reindeer are owned by private persons. Freely roaming reindeer are timid animals that get scared easily. Keep a safe distance between you and the reindeer. In Finland, the Reindeer Act prohibits frightening the reindeer. Irrespective of its size, a dog not accustomed to reindeer, very easily starts chasing an escaping animal. This may possibly cause massive damage. Especially spring-winter and spring are critical times for reindeer herding as the female reindeer are pregnant. Do not frighten or chase the reindeer for a good photograph, especially not with your mobile phone.

A tourizzi is a tourist who acts like a paparazzi by photographing everything that even slightly may possibly be connected to this strange, mystical, magical culture. If the targeted objects escape, this actually provides convenient practical exercise when chasing after them. A tourizzi can also be called an unwanted and uninvited guest who has no knowledge of how to respect or take the local people into consideration.

Tourizzis are the opposite of responsible visitors who remember being guests at someone else’s home. Responsible visitors respect and take into consideration the life and culture-specific customs of local communities. Responsible visitors get to know the specific features of their destination before the trip and take them into consideration while at the destination.

The cornerstone of Sámi tourism is formed by the idea of productisation and representation of Sámi culture being based on a strong connection with and responsibility towards the Sámi community, families or siida concerned whose culture or traditionally inhabited lands or usufructuary areas are being utilised or represented in a tourism product. Visitors’ responsibility covers all places, where their deeds and footsteps reach and affect or may reach and affect. Responsible visitors get to know the specific features of their destination before the trip. Responsible visitors take into consideration and respect the customs and needs of the local population.