Sleds

Until the 1900s, almost all transportation of both people and goods in Sápmi, the Land of the Sámi, was carried out using individual sleds and caravans of sleds. In earlier times, sleds were used all around the Sámi region, but the shapes of the sleds and the materials used to make them varied from one area to another. When the Sámi used only draught-reindeer and sleds for transportation, each family needed at least three driving sleds and 15–20 other sleds.

Three types of sleds were used in the 1800s: driving sleds, caravan sleds and lockable sleds. Driving sleds had a backboard, while caravan sleds generally did not have one. Lockable sleds had a lockable lid. The Skolt Sámi, an eastern group of Sámi, adapted the craft of making sleighs with runners from other nations in the 1800s. In the mid-1800s the Sámi began to use sleighs in Western Lapland as well, gradually replacing sleds with them. Later, the introduction of motor vehicles and roads finally made sleds useless.

1–5 Driving sled

6 Caravan sled

7–9 Lockable sled

10 Skolt Sámi sani sleigh

11 Sleigh

Boats

Boats in the Inari region can be divided into three categories according to the type of watercourse on which they are used. On small lakes, the boats have been quite short, wide and simple in terms of structure. On bigger lakes such as Lake Inari, the boats have been bigger, higher in the bow and sometimes even equipped with a sail. The river boats have been long and narrow.

In the earliest technique used in building boats from planks, which was still used in the late 1800s, the planks were sewn together using birch or willow twigs, pine roots or twisted hemp ropes as thick as pencils. The local lake boats are similar to the boats used in Karelia, while the river boats of this region, as early as the 1700s, were modelled on the boats used by Finnish settlers.

1-2 River boat

3 Church boat from Lake Inari

4-5 Lake boat

Outside weir trestle (a support structure used in weir fishing on the Teno River)