These people were short of stature, compactly but slightly built, with strong limbs, their light weight allowing them to climb, jump, and run quickly. There are no heavy men with big stomachs among them. Quite a number of Lapps have fair hair and blue eyes. They are unlike the Esquimaux, and in a crowd at home, dressed like ourselves, would pass unnoticed. There are a number of Lapps in the North-west of our own county. The tallest woman that I saw was 5 feet ½ inch, the tallest man 5 feet 4½ inches; the smallest woman 4 feet 4¼ inches, the smallest man 4 feet 7 inches. There were more women averaging 4 feet 10 inches than men of that size, men averaging generally above five feet.
I left Kautokeino, and that same day I came to Lake Givijärvi. I had to be told that it was a lake, for it was a continuous snow-land. Here was a farm, the owner of which kept a small store and sold sugar, coffee, salt, flour, tobacco, matches, some woollen underwear, etc., to the Lapps; and bought from them skins, shoes, and gloves, in summer smoked tongue and reindeer meat, reindeer cheese, etc., and every year went with these to some of the Norwegian towns on the Arctic Sea to sell them and buy groceries and other goods.
Here I had a clean room and bed. The place was a great rendezvous for nomadic Lapps, and I found many of them. The farmer extended to them unbounded hospitality, and spread as many reindeer skins on the floor at night as the room could hold, for them to sleep on.
The Lapps liked the place very much, and came there to rest for a few days, bringing their food with them. Their wives and children would also come, and were sure to be welcome at the farm. I could not drink sufficient milk or coffee, or eat enough reindeer meat, cheese, or butter that had been churned in summer, to please the good-hearted farmer. He wanted no pay. He even insisted on accompanying me to Karasjok.
The sleighing was fine, and the snow was six and seven feet deep on a level. Our arrival at Karasjok, after a hundred miles' journey from Givijärvi, was announced by the fierce barking of the dogs of the place, and twice I was almost overtaken by one more fierce than the others. "They only bark," shouted my guide. I was now in latitude 69° 35', and within a few miles of the longitude of Nordkyn. The hamlet was situated on the shores of the Karasjoki river. Some of the fir trees of the forests near Karasjok measured twenty inches in diameter; but once cut they do not grow again. I saw very few young trees.
The hamlet was composed of eighteen or twenty homesteads, with about one hundred and thirty inhabitants. There were over twenty horses, besides cows, sheep, and reindeer. The horses were so plentiful because they are used to haul timber. I reflected that the horse is a wonderful animal, and can live like man in many kinds of climate.
All the houses at Karasjok were built of logs. The finest residence was that of the merchant of the place. The Karasjok Lapps, and others in the neighborhood, were very unlike those I had seen before. They were tall; some of them six feet in height. The women were also tall, most of them having dark hair. The fair complexion and blue eyes were uncommon. Men and women wore strange-looking head-dresses. The men wore square caps of red or blue flannel, filled up with eider down. The women put on a wooden framework of very peculiar shape, appearing more or less like a casque or the helmet of a dragoon.
I only stopped the night in Karasjok, and after getting new reindeer at the post station and a new guide, started north.