The Sámi capital of Norway — the parliament of an indigenous nation, reindeer migration through the birch forest, and the most intense Northern Lights sky in Europe
Karasjok (Kárášjohka in Northern Sámi) is the administrative and cultural capital of the Sámi people in Norway — a small town on the Karasjohka (Kárášjohka) River in the far north of Finnmark, 18km from the Finnish border, at 69.5°N, well within the Arctic Circle. The Sámediggi (the Norwegian Sámi Parliament, established 1989) is located in Karasjok — the parliament building (inaugurated 2000), an architectural collaboration between Norse vernacular architecture and Sámi tent (lavvu) form, is the symbolic centre of Sámi political self-determination in Norway. The Sámi people (an indigenous pe…
The Sámi people have inhabited the northern Scandinavian and Russian Arctic (Sápmi, the Sámi homeland) for at least 5,000 years — the earliest evidence of a specifically Sámi cultural identity (the Komsa culture of the Arctic coast, the Sámi-language rock art of Alta) dates to the Stone Age. The Norwegian state policy of 'Norwegianisation' (Fornorskningspolitikken, 1850s–1960s) suppressed Sámi language and culture — Sámi children were prohibited from speaking their language at the state boarding schools (internat) established to assimilate the Sámi into Norwegian society. The establishment of…