From February 6th to 11th, 2018, we (Norway) celebrated Sami week in Tromsø to honor Sami people and culture. This was a week full of cultural activities for both locals and tourists, including presentations and displays of history, language and culture, mainly through music and art at several local museums, the city library and the library at Fram Centre (where the Norwegian Polar Institute is physically located). The week begins with the official Sami’s people day on Feb 6th, and it ends over the weekend with, among various other activities, the street market (where many Sami hand-made goods and foods are made available for sale at the main Tromsø plaza) and the very popular reindeer race.

More details and information about Sami week can be found in the MidnightSunMarathon of Tromsø’s website here.

The photos above were taken by Greg during this year’s reindeer race, which took place in the main street in downtown Tromsø. Like every year, this represented the Championship Reindeer Race in Norway of 2018, with about 8 of the fastest reindeers in the country competing by pulling the racer (on the type of skis of his/her choice) through a 201-m track. It takes about 16 seconds to go through the track, but much longer to get ready for the next run, so it could get a little chilly to wait for each run. This was a fascinating and unique sporting event for us to watch, and Evan loved it too!