, divided vertically down the middle to separate the two ears, with the distinctive markings traced in with pen and ink. A copy of this was posted with others in a public place, so that all men might know that deer marked so were the chemist’s property.
When the snows fall, and the time comes for driving, then the little chemist begins to find life worth living. With pride he showed us his gear: the smartest outfit imaginable. First, there was a pulling collar for the deer with two wooden hames bound with iron. Then there was a saddle of leather, most elaborately worked and embroidered with red. For the middle of the deer’s long neck was another red collar, decorated with a fine brass bell. The trace was of raw hide, plaited square. There was one single-tree of bent wood, with a looped thong made fast to its middle. This thong was passed through a hole under the forefoot of the sledge, and the loop was slipped over the bit on the stem-head, so that the deer could always be cast adrift from the sledge at a moment’s notice.
The boat-shaped sledge itself was a miracle of light-blue paint, but a cranky thing for a beginner to sit. It would roll forty-five degrees without capsizing, but it was apt to exceed the forty-five. There is a pole to guide with, and the pole is a thing of use; for riding at speed in these sledges over an uneven snow-field is distinctly a matter of balance.
We saw that the little chemist was a man of taste from the trimness of this turn-out; but when he showed us his own personal attire for winter journeys, we saw that he was a man of luxury also. Everything was cut after the mode of the Lapps, and cost was a neglected detail.
He put on his winter rig for our gratification, and we admired him from head to foot. On the top of him came the lapinlakki, the heavy, square-topped Lappish cap, with the crown made of bright scarlet cloth, and the band round the head, of otter’s fur. Round his neck was the sieppura, a collaret of bear’s fur, with the bear’s mask hanging over his breast. The matsoreo (or peski) which covered his trunk was of soft gray-brown reindeer skin, with the hair exquisitely dressed and finished. The fingerless gloves (kinteaat) on his hands were of white reindeer skin, with the hair outside. He had short, hairless, leather breeches underneath, but these were joined in mid-thigh by the sӑpӑkkeet, which were reindeer-skin leggings that reached down to the ankles, where they were made fast to the leather boots, the kallakkoat, by narrow, red cloth paulat, which may be defined as bandages.
The day happened to be blazing hot, and the little chemist almost melted under the weight of his furs, which plimmed him out to nearly double his normal size; but he told us that in winter there were days of bitter frost and driving gale, when it was dangerous to venture out of doors even in that Arctic panoply. Here in the interior of Lapland, out of all distant influence of the Gulf Stream, far greater extremes of temperature prevail than in more northern spots like, say, Vardö.
The little chemist was a fisherman at times during the summer months, and being somewhat of a naturalist besides, he had collected on paper the names of his possible catch. He had not succeeded in finding a specimen of each in the Ounasjoki so far, but the fish were undoubtedly in the country, and some day he hoped to complete his basket. I give the list here, in case somebody may find them interesting:—
| Salmo salar | Coreogonus lavaretus |
| Salmo eriox | Coreogonus albula |
| Salmo alpinus | Esox lucius |
| Osmerus eperlanus (North of 68º) | Leucuscus grislagine |
| Thymallus vulgatis | Perca fluviatilis |
He warmed up when the talk got on fish, and took us across to the house of a neighbour who made his living out of fish-catching as an industry. The neighbour gave us spruce beer, a flat decoction, which we found somewhat insipid, and then he started to talk. We warmed as we heard him; it was quite like being at home again. I have only met one man to equal him, and he was a Lincolnshire pike-fisherman who never seemed to catch anything less than a yard in length, or the size of a man’s thigh in girth. This fisherman of Kittila was not quite so artistic in his yarns as the man of Lincolnshire. He rushed his statements too much, and did not wait till they were dragged out of him; but he never flinched at anything. He illustrated his conversation by diagrams with a piece of charcoal on the floor as he went on; and when his imagination failed him, one or other of us foreigners would start on a fish story, and he would take the words out of our mouths and go on again at redoubled speed.