This master studio course in landscape architecture focuses on traditional ecological knowledge in
contemporary Arctic landscape practices. Within the territorial scope of North Fennoscandia, this
includes the prospects of Sámi reindeer husbandry, coastal fishery, small scale agriculture, gathering
and harvesting food resources and materials. In transition, Indigenous landscape practices represent
a continuum of lively worlds finding new forms, and some are in the process of disappearing while
emerging practices introduce new ways of relating to the cultural landscapes. Through interpretative
mapping and landscape design methodologies, this studio aims to explore how incipient landscapes
shape capacity for resistance in time.
Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) is described as a cumulative body of knowledge, practice
and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations by cultural
transmission, see Berkes and Davidson-Hunt (2006). A cold climate and demanding weather
conditions will often brutally correct any lack of knowledge, and hence inspire an appreciation and
respect for shared traditional knowledge. This can be traced in for instance clothes, knives,
agricultural tools, fishing equipment and boats. The landscapes of Western Finnmark stretches from
the fjords and coastal mountains where reindeer herds reside in the summers, via river valleys with
meandering rivers, to the mountain plateau that offers winter pastures. People have adapted to the
different conditions through a combination of livelihoods and exchange of produce and services.
Along with the coast fishing, farming and seasonal work were combined, and in the inland, the
agriculture was combined with freshwater fishing and harvesting. The Sámi concept verdde (guestfriend)
describes the relationship of exchange between the reindeer pastoralists and mountain
farmers in the inland and with the farmer fishers at the coast.
The Alta area has been described as the meeting place between the Sámi, Norwegian, and Kven
culture. The way individuals identify with cultural roots may be mixed, fluid and ambiguous while the
connections to the landscape are strong. Russian and international citizens also bring with them
habitual manners of connecting to the landscape. Exploring a multicultural field can be both
challenging and inspiring, and in many parts of the world, multiple cultures strive to learn to live
closely together and share common resources. During the last 20 years, nature-based tourism has
established itself as an up and coming industry in Alta. Small scale locally owned establishments
introducing new ways of inviting guests into the landscape offer Arctic experiences varying from dogsledging,
snowshoeing, all-season mountain biking, snowmobile, canoeing, hiking and cooking. Many
of them are located in the river valley, and they are dependent on having access to territories outside
their plots, using old postal and hiking routes crossing the landscape. In the mountain plateaus close
to Kautokeino and Karasjok nature-based tourism businesses cooperate closely with reindeer
husbandry.
Currently, a truth and reconciliation commission formed by the Norwegian Parliament is inquiring
into the consequences of the Norwegianisation policy suffered by the Sámi and Kven populations.
The Norwegianisation policy lasted from 1860 to 1980. In the environmental history of Sápmi, the
controversy of the Alta-Kautokeino watercourse became a turning point in the relationship between
the Sámi and the Norwegian State. In general, it can be said about the current situation that, through
Section 108 of the Norwegian Constitution and the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the
Norwegian State obliges the State to take decisive measures to safeguard Sámi and national minority
cultures. Since the 1980s, Sámi culture is revitalized through diverse ways of developing and
connecting to Sámi heritage and identity. However, Sámi reindeer husbandry practitioners, the
minority within the minority, still experiences severe pressures that first and foremost is due to loss
of grazing land and increasing activity and industrialization of outfield landscapes. There is a
considerable pressure to develop rural landscapes for large scale industry, mining, energy plants and
infrastructure. Some of these new developments will change the perception of the Arctic landscapes,
and also present new preconditions for traditional ways of using natural resources. The legislation
that regulates outfield industries is fragmented between sector authorities. This situation leads
according to Nikolay Winge (2013) to a bit-by-bit development and increasingly fragmented outlying
fields.
Outlying fields or outfields (in Norwegian: utmark) is often used synonymously to the North Sámi
term meahcci. In 2007, the Sámi Parliament’s guidelines for changed use of Meahcci under § 4 in the
Finnmark Act came into force. The guidelines aim to ensure thorough and sound assessment of the
effects on Sami culture, reindeer husbandry, land usage, commercial practice and community life
before decisions are made in cases of changed use of meahcci/utmark. Joks, Law, and Østmo, (2019)
notes that this narrow meaning of meahcci is rooted in a series of mistranslations between Sámi and
Norwegian terms, practices and interests. To use landscape terms that draw sharp lines between
nature and humans' place in the world breaks with both the Sámi usage of natural resources and
Sámi terminology. Schanche (2002) suggests that Sámi perceptions of the landscape may be tied to
other concepts and ways of understanding the world. Law and Østmo (2017) concur that: 'It is a
world in which a binary distinction between nature and culture makes no sense'. Landscape
architectural representations are mediated worldviews. Will exposure to Indigenous worldviews,
landscape practices and traditional ecological knowledge lead to new ways of doing landscape
architecture? By engaging with traditional landscape practices to develop an understanding of
territorial processes and by considering traditional ecological knowledge in landscape design, we will
learn to challenge measures of landscape value.
During the work with this course description, the cascading effects of the corona emergency
measures demonstrated how vulnerable our societies are to restrictions on mobility. Norway
produces less than 50% of its food, and the farmers are dependent on seasonal workers from abroad.
In many rural places, small scale experience-based tourism and culture festivals dependent on
tourists and guests suffered significant losses. For reindeer husbandry, the corona crisis came on top
of a grazing crisis due to the worst snow conditions since 1968. Globally, the discourses on climate
mitigation, climate justice and loss of biodiversity were overshadowed by the pandemic crisis. How
the governance of human interaction, teaching and learning activities will play out in the fall is still
uncertain. What we do know is that the current situation calls for new ways of learning and relating
to landscape, community and biodiversity.
