TRAVEL FACES: Laila Spik, a woman Joni Mitchell would be proud of

                                                             Laila Spik, Sami guide.


The sad news this week that Joni Mitchell was in hospital reminded me that I had read that she is of Sami heritage.

The Canadian singer’s father's parents were Norwegian and she has told journalists she believes they were Sami people.  (According to a statement on her official website, Mitchell is now awake and undergoing tests.)

I discovered this information when researching a trip to Sapmi or Lapland in Sweden last year. Through my contacts I was introduced by email to Laila Spik, a Sami guide and writer of cookbooks and guides to native plants.

She lives between Kiruna and Jokkmokk near a place called Gällivare, above the Arctic Circle. She very kindly suggested she come to my Kiruna hostel to meet me, one freezing April morning.

I made her a cup of tea and she told me her story. Her parents were both reindeer herders from different areas of Sapmi. When they first met they couldn’t understand each other because they spoke different languages.

 She was the eldest daughter, so her father taught her about their culture so it wouldn’t be lost. She has written widely about this.

 Explaining Sami beliefs in animism, spirits and shamanism, she told me they believed in goddesses, including the fire goddess who must be respected and always fed first.

 “Every morning when we come to the tent to eat we boil tea and coffee and under the fireplace are seven stones, one stone for every day and one stone for baking and drying and putting the hot pan but there was somebody who lived under that and it was the goddess who helped the child be born and who protected the people and we never should forget her,” she said.

These days the Sami Parliament, with elected members who sit in Kiruna, works for increased self-determination, protects Sami languages and land including  mining negotiation and is the central administrative agency for reindeer husbandry. However many are still coping with the consequences of culture loss during the missionary years when from the early 19^th century they were denied their rights, including being able to speak their own language and practise shamanism and their children were taken away to boarding schools, Laila said.

The Sami are also the exponents of one of Europe’s oldest vocal song traditions, known as “yoiking”. When I visited the Sami TV station in Kiruna the young journalists there explained the “yoiker” and the subject of the yoik are intimately connected, which is known as “yoiking”.

Traditionally instruments weren’t used. Instead the music, which is said to create an emotional bond between people, animals and nature, uses melodic and often haunting vocal sounds and sometimes lyrics. Sami say they ”yoik something” rather than sing about something in a tradition that is becoming more popular now with one of its exponents winning a TV talent show.

I’m sure Joni Mitchell is very proud of her heritage.

**   Laila is available as a tour guide for individuals and groups, which can include gathering plants and herbs traditionally used in Sami cooking and medicine. Her email is:laila.spik@gmail.com