Paramotor Magazine, Issue 17
February / March 2010
Olof Heikka was the first Sami reindeer herder to swap his skidoo for a paramotor in the frozen north. By Ed Ewing. Photographs: Dan Burton
Olof Heikka’s internet Skype icon has a little notice beside it. It says, “Reindeer work take all my time now.” Olof is, almost unbelievably, magically even, in this northern season of snow, ice and cold, a paramotoring reindeer herder.
More than that, he is a traditional Sami reindeer herder, working high above the Arctic Circle at the very top of the world. When I hear about him, it’s as if Santa Claus has just come buzzing in on his trike and tandem wing, looking for a place to land.
“Where to start?” he asks in English when I finally reach him on Skype – internet phone – one evening in mid-January. “I’m a reindeer herder. I’m a Sami people, the first people in Scandinavia. I have been reindeer herding since I was born.
"My father was a reindeer herder, my grandfather was a reindeer herder. So I learnt to work with reindeer since I was a young boy.”
There are an estimated 3,000 Sami reindeer herders in Europe, part of the 80,000 to 135,000 Sami who live in the Nordic countries. They have herded reindeer across the top of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia for some 500 years. Before that, they hunted wild reindeer in the forest.
One of the first peoples in Europe the Sami are indigenous to the region – thought to have lived above the Arctic circle for almost 3,000 years. The DNA ‘family-tree’ suggests they started their migration north from Catalonia and Basque regions of southern Europe between 10,000 – 15,000 years ago.
They are one of Europe’s first – and last – indigenous groups...
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