The man sitting opposite me was clearly something of a character. As he spoke I noticed how he emphasised each word with flashes of his dark, somewhat slanting eyes. And, as I listened, I tried to think what it was he reminded me of. He was unusually tall, and extremely thin – and in that overcrowded Italian roadside restaurant he towered over his colourful and noisy surroundings; it was as if an ostrich had dropped in for dinner at a chicken farm. The strong bird-like resemblance was reinforced by a relatively small head. Mario Allegri wore his hair crew cut and an immaculately tailored corduroy suit. His movements were spare and contained, but impressive none the less by virtue of his size. He did not fit my preconception of an ‘adventurer’ in the least, although friends had told me at one of my Milan lectures how he had been several times to South America with Walter Bonatti. This was after Bonatti, the famous Italian mountaineer, had given up guiding in favour of a life of all-round adventure; he worked now as a features photographer for Epoca magazine. Mario Allegri lived, when he was at home, in Milan, but you could tell from his face and those unusual eyes that he was not pure Italian. He told me later that his family tree included a grandmother from the Mato Grosso.
My table companion, it soon transpired, had already organised several filming expeditions of his own. He had little patience, he told me, with large teams, for they would inevitably include someone who found the strain of adventure intolerable.
‘Can you work with an Arriflex?’ he demanded suddenly, the dark eyes scrutinising me keenly.
Arriflex, eh? The camera of professionals: you have to know it really well to get good results. My brother-in-law, Herbert Raditschnig, uses one all the time, and I’d seen it of course, but ... A voice inside was warning, ‘Kurt, this is your big chance. Don’t blow it!’ Mario was clearly looking for a one-man film-crew, who wouldn’t be put off by danger or difficulty. And me? I wanted a springboard to the wider, adventurous world, wanted to get to know it not only as a mountaineer. ‘Play it very carefully,’ my voice whispered, as the question still hung in the air. ‘If you want that job, don’t give any hint of weakness!’
‘Of course,’ I replied, hoping I was pitching the right tone of confidence, ‘of course I can work with an Arriflex.’
‘Benissimo. All we have to do, then, is find one.’
‘Well, it’s true I don’t have my own,’ I ventured, ‘but – given the right advance, of course – I’d be prepared to get one.’
I got the advance. Now I was an adventure cameraman! I could have leapt for joy. The fact that, apart from the camera, I would get nothing out of the enterprise, bothered me not one jot. I had the whole world at my feet, a totally new horizon. This would be the magic carpet to waft us from continent to continent ...
Every day I practised with my new camera – new to me, that is: it was second-hand, of course, a well-preserved memento from an old Tibet hand.
At last the great moment arrived. The smallest film unit in the world set off from Milan, Mario and I: he the actor, and I the rest. And if we turned out not to be the smallest, certainly we would be the most ‘adventurous’. First stop: Scandinavia.
Dandelions are blooming in Copenhagen. In Oslo everything is green. A wonderful town, I think, as we touch down. In the waiting room a TV-screen shows us snowploughs shovelling wall-like mounds of snow … Funny, I think, to be showing winter films now. Where is that? ‘Oh, way up north,’ A Norwegian passenger smiles reassuringly. ‘A long way from here!’ But could it be where we are heading, I wonder? More than likely.
A two-hour flight will take us to Tromsö ... it is dark as we take off, and we see nothing of the mighty fjords and the many islands, nor the deeply troughed valleys of this ancient ice-fashioned landscape. We will look at it, when our magic carpet will be carrying us on to England and Newfoundland …
By and by, as we approach the Arctic Circle, dawn starts breaking ... in the soft half-light we swoop along the Tromsö airstrip, whipping up sprays of grey ice. Whhoarrr, it’s cold here! Midwinter! Soon we are in the air again, on our way to Alta: nothing to see but snow, snow and more snow – it might as well be Christmas! The sweltering heat of Milan, the dandelion meadows of Copenhagen seem surreal now, with this hummocky white landscape beneath us. Only the fjord water remains unfrozen – everything else is buried under deep drifts. No wonder the Scandinavian television was full of it.
We are well kitted out: you have to be prepared for anything on a world tour such as ours. Our boots and high gaiters, for instance, essential in deep snow, will serve as well in the jungle, and might even prove useful at sea – it is purely a matter of style and personal preference. Only in the desert might we find them too hot, despite their obvious protective qualities against cactus spines and rattlesnakes. But that’s a long way from this – soon we will be with the reindeer, in the Land of Reindeer. Lapland is full of reindeer, every child knows that. The Lapps centre their lives around reindeer. They eat reindeer meat, make tools and other household objects from reindeer horns, and only keep a few small, rough-haired horses in order to be able to maintain control over their enormous herds of reindeer ... I can remember the geography lesson clearly. I suppose they don’t run around dressed entirely in reindeer fur, but they surely sit on it. And the tents of this nomadic people will consist of birch-pole frames with reindeer-skin canopies pulled over them, and more skins stuffed into the gaps to keep out the draughts.
We eat reindeer schnitzels in Alta’s little airport restaurant. Dark meat – very tasty – and surprisingly expensive. There are antlers all over the walls – reindeer, naturally. ‘We should be able to wrap up here in two days,’ Mario tells me. The publisher who has commissioned the film is not after an in-depth scientific documentary, rather a series of glimpses of different places around the world, all featuring Mario as their (well-paid) hero. (To be fair, he incurs a lot of expenses in the process.) It is to be a publicity film, and, as such, needs to be as colourful and multi-faceted as we can make it. I call it the Magic Carpet since – besides taking Mario and me 30,000 kilometres, halfway around the globe – it must be woven in stripes of white, green and red – ice, jungle, and, perhaps, desert. Mario wants it finished as soon as possible ... whereas I wish it could go on for ever. It seems such a pity to grab everything we need here in only two days. I so much wanted to reach the North Cape, to see more of the country ... but to picture Mario with a herd of reindeer and a Lapp or two, whether I like it or not, cannot be blown up into a big production. Already, I envisage the first strip of the magic carpet: white, with black polka dots, like a punch card, or a spotted cravat … the dots being the reindeer, of course. I cannot resist a sigh at an enterprise more Laputan than Lappish.
Lunch over, Mario asks our host, ‘Where are all the reindeer around here?’ Instead of the prompt reply he was expecting, the man scratches his head reflectively before announcing at length that we would probably do best to drive to Karasjok. ‘You’re bound to find some there. It’s a Lapp town ... and all the animals belong to them.’ A town? With houses? Well, we shouldn’t be surprised: time does not stand still anywhere. We’ll just have to find a way of rustling up a few tents from somewhere. Fancy having to drive more than 200 kilometres for the nearest guaranteeable reindeer herd! Mario pulls a sour face, but I am jubilant. Aha! I tell myself. See how it is: an Italian in Norway expecting to see lots of reindeer is no different from the American tourist thinking he’ll find everyone wearing chamois brushes in Austria and Lederhosen in Bavaria. Maybe I’ll get to the North Cape yet, who knows? Except, of course, that Karasjok is in the opposite direction, almost on the Finnish border. Our host observes that if only we had landed in Lakselv, we would now need to drive just seventy kilometres. What’s the odds? We need a rental car anyway. And soon we find one: an old black Beetle, somewhat rusty. ‘You’ll find two winter tyres and chains inside,’ the car’s owner tells us.
‘We’ll not be wanting those for just 200 kilometres,’ Mario remarks under his breath, adding, ‘I used to be a test-driver, you know.’ And we were off!
Piles of snow everywhere, the road itself is really wintry. Mario drives like an Italian in summer. This m‘We’ll not be wanting those for just 200 kilometres,’ Mario remarks under his breath, adding, ‘I used to be a test-driver, you know.’ And we were off!
Piles of snow everywhere, the road itself is really wintry. Mario drives like an Italian in summer. This must be what you call an occupational hazard, I think to myself and hang on grimly.
But soon I understand: Mario really can drive. Even with summer tyres in winter. I still have a lot to learn about my companion in adventure. So, how do you make small talk with a test-driver? ‘I was with Ferrari,’ Mario explains laconically, and lets the car glide round another bend. Hills are passing by, cloaked in birch saplings, all sticking out gauntly from the snow, and finally there comes a flat plain. The road is dead straight and Mario steps on the gas. He is a true artist, and I tell myself you should never begrudge an artist. Soon we have covered a hundred kilometres – halfway – and all I hope, as Mario begins telling me chapters of his life’s story, is that we don’t encounter an icy patch ... What did I learn about him? Everything has slipped my memory, but for one moment. And that I see and hear as clearly as if it was happening right now: Mario had just remarked that test-driving was only one episode in his professional quest for adventure, ‘There was that business with Walter Bonatti … ’ he says, pausing for dramatic effect at the very moment we start a slide towards the edge of the road. Oooop, over we go, plunging down in a cloud of snow. We can see nothing, seem to be swimming ... I cling to the door handle, feel a blow on my knee – and that’s it – we have stopped. Silence. A rather exaggerated dramatic pause our storyteller made there, but he appears completely unmoved. ‘These things happen,’ he continues after the interruption; I, meanwhile, rub my bashed knee. We are stuck in deep snow, some six metres from the road.
I don’t answer.
‘Won’t have done the car any harm,’ Mario comments. ‘German workmanship.’
‘You’re sure of that?’ I grind my teeth, still hugging my knee, tempted to remark that while the car might be German, it’s the bloody Italian stuntman’s work that has brought us to this. Better to swallow it. At least we have not turned over. As we eventually scrabble our way out, I enquire wearily whether many of Mario’s test runs proved as demanding as this.
‘Oh, much harder,’ he assures me. ‘This was just a minor derailing – come on, put your back in it, push!’ That’s never going to move, I think, as I strain against the vehicle. And nor does it. The car will not budge an inch. We are stuck.
I am just wondering how we come to be having such bad luck on the very first day of our trip, when I notice the ‘13’ on the car’s number plate. Usually I consider that my lucky number – have done so ever since making the thirteen ascent of the Eigerwand. (Even when it later turned out to be the fifteenth!) At least, we can now be sure of an extra two days in Scandinavia! Thoughtfully, I regard the car: everything depends on how you look at it – even the number thirteen …
Mario hunts for a shovel in the boot and, failing to find one, swears, ‘Porca miseria!’ I am still weighing the mysteries of numbers – can any number be luckier or unluckier than others? A superstitious pessimist would have no doubts that was why we came off the road. I am just about to ask Mario whether in Italy test-pilots regard thirteen as a good or bad omen when ... tuck, tuck, tuck ... across the solitude of this wintry landscape comes the welcome chug of a tractor. It is our lucky day after all! Apart from two snowploughs and five cars, we hadn’t seen any other vehicle since we started. We beam delightedly at the tractor-driver as if he were the Redeemer himself … Mario jabbers away in Italian and English, I, at the same time, in German – but anyone can see what has befallen us. The man shakes his head, winks, clucks his tongue and mumbles something we, in our turn, cannot understand.
Eventually, he clambers from his vehicle and produces a length of rope. I suppose he must be used to this sort of thing. Within minutes, the Beetle gently breasts the surface of the snow – leading its cloven wake like a swan on Lake Constance – and is returned to the road.
Mario drove on with considerably more caution, and in the small town of Lakselv we stopped to put on the winter tyres. Clouds covered the sky, engulfing everything in monochromous grey. We were still surrounded by thousands of birch trees. This was an incredibly lonely landscape, yet one of haunting beauty. I still could not get over how we had stepped from Italy’s summer into this deepest of deep winters. Such abrupt transformations throw your feelings into havoc. We were in boisterous spirits, one adventure behind us already, and all the time drawing nearer to the enormous reindeer herds of Karasjok. Every so often I would peer concentratedly into the murk, to see if I could make out any of the animals yet.
Then, all of a sudden, after a bend in the road, the village materialised ahead: small houses, a neat red-roofed church, people. Not a reindeer in sight, anywhere. An old man was sitting on a stool beside a pile of antlers, carving ... Taking a deep breath, we approached and enquired, with the liberal aid of sign language, where all the animals were. The Lapp smiled, reordering the crinkles on his friendly old face; sometimes nodding at our gesticulations, then he waved expansively towards the open landscape ...
Not here, did he mean? Not now, or not at all? We pressed him again. The gesture was repeated with more precision. He pointed to the north, saying something that sounded like ‘North Cape’. The reindeer were certainly not here: that much was clear. They were either at the cape or on their way there. Mario’s face darkened for a moment, while I showed no emotion. Then, shrugging, my friend conceded: ‘I guess that means we head for the North Cape. Come on.’ Two hundred kilometres, and a ferry ride! Oh, Lapland, Land of Reindeer!
Just then, a small boy, who had been called over by the old man, tugged at my sleeve, pointing up the road ... Full of expectation we followed him to a courtyard, where there really was a reindeer! The only one in all Karasjok, but here only because it was sick – so we understood from the many signs and words of a kindly Lapp woman in a red bonnet. I was ready with my camera to film Mario, the ailing reindeer and the helpful woman with her round and friendly face. But he would have none of it: ‘It’s not what we want at all,’ he snapped, and his short hair appeared to bristle even more than usual. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here!’
Karasjok had indeed proved a disappointment – for Mario. Soon, we were racing along again at test-speed. Back towards Lakselv, where we had just come from. For it was clear that we would not reach the North Cape that day.
Honningsvog. Colourful houses, red, yellow, green, even blue, overlooked the grey, wide expanse of fjord, surrounded by rounded rocky hills. The mirrored images of the ships danced a weaving pattern of broken lines and colour-splashes on the water’s surface. The ferryboat, which had brought us to this island of Mageroy, was tethered to the jetty. A Norwegian we met explained to us that the reindeer were able to swim across this narrow strait separating the island from the mainland. With dismay, we learned that they had done so only a couple of days ago and were now roaming somewhere in the mountains of the island. We might be able to find them, but only with luck on our side. We had simply arrived a few days too late.
So better reconcile ourselves to a longer stay: getting up into the snow-covered mountains with the cameras and all our paraphernalia was not going to be a picnic. And, anyway, where should we go? Where would the reindeer be hiding? Even if we found them, they were not likely to hang around till we got close with our cameras.
A German, I thought wryly to myself, would certainly have come better prepared than my happy-go-lucky Italian friend. A German would surely have contacted the appropriate local authorities beforehand ... would never have found himself in a predicament like this. But Mario – I understand that now – likes to drop from the sky. He is an adventurer to the root of his soul. Later, I learned to admire him for his art of improvisation. His reaction in this instance was to assert, ‘We’ll work something out – with the help of these three bottles of cognac I bought in Copenhagen. Not to worry.’ It’s not that reindeer have a taste for cognac, you understand, but the Lapps might prove a different matter. In Norway, with its strict alcohol regulations, and where almost half the population moonshines, Mario’s proposal sounded perfectly plausible. Especially since the Lapps surely wanted to catch their reindeer sooner or later, and knew well enough how to do so – I had no doubts about that. The problem was that so far we had not found any such Lapps.
That was the situation when Mario and I started for a small walk along the coast. We did not take our cameras, we were just stretching our legs, not expecting to find anything. It was night-time and very still, not a person on the road, but – of course – it was not dark. Here we were, just ten kilometres from the northernmost point of Europe, the North Cape, already well inside the Arctic Circle. Some readers will know from experience that when you first visit this area, you hardly shut an eye during the bright nights. The best thing, then, is to get up and do something positive, which is how Mario and I came to be walking along the coast, pondering Item One on our agenda, the reindeer problem. After half an hour we turned a corner to discover a small bay. The sloping shore on the other side shimmered in the twilight, a gleaming stripe punctuated with black dots. What’s this? The punch-card strip of the magic carpet? It was! Almost exactly as I had imagined it!
‘The reindeer!’ Mario yelled at the same moment. We hugged one another, then speeded our steps. As expected, there was a Lapp close by – and we soon arranged with him everything for our filming.
However, the nearer we drew, the more peculiar this herd seemed. Strangely immobile. ‘They are never reindeer!’ Mario let out a curse, ‘Porca miseria!’ And he had a point: the herd turned out to be ... a graveyard. Nothing but identical dark headstones in the snow, with some coloured plastic flowers between, invisible from a distance. It seemed an inauspicious omen.
‘Isn’t it time we gave up on this story?’ I suggested to Mario.
The two brothers were called Jakob and Knut. They lived with their families in a pair of low houses behind a hill above Honningsvog – and where they lived, the mountains began. Not big mountains, archaic stumps, smoothed and rounded by the great glaciers of the Ice Age. Ideal for ski-tourists and, of course, reindeer. Jakob and Knut would be happy to take us to the reindeer, or – if we preferred – the reindeer to us ... which would take perhaps two days.
The brothers already had an enthusiastic gleam in their eye when I met them; Mario had spoken to them beforehand. ‘This time, we really get the animals,’ he whispered to me with a knowing nod. There was one bottle less in his box.
Ratta-tat-tat! The skidoo went racing over the slopes, leaving a rippled furrow like a miniature bulldozer track. Not a good comparison, perhaps: a skidoo, which is no bigger than a motorcycle, is no lumbering load-carrier, but swift and highly manoeuvrable. Ratta-tat-tat ...
Lapps in houses, on skidoos, rather than living in tents and riding small, shaggy horses? Let us not dwell on that: this is no time for nostalgia – which of us, in the Lapps’ position, would not seek to improve his lot? Luckily, one of our new friends spoke a smattering of German. Did they still have any horses, I wanted to know. ‘Just two,’ they told me. I could see how difficult it would be logistically to make a film about the way the Lapps used to be, and it was fortunate that was not our aim. A small ‘expedition’ was put together: two motor sledges (the skidoos) with crew (the brothers), two long low regular sledges, which would be hitched to the motorised ones, a dog who barked delightedly at the prospect of going into the mountains, and, of course, Mario and me. On to one of the sledges we packed the tripod, one big camera in its metal suitcase, fur skins and other material; the second carried tarpaulins, ropes (which later turned out to be lassos), food, more fur skins and dry birch branches. The power with which those two motor sledges finally pulled all that weight over the slopes was impressive. Mario was in high spirits. He had been watching the younger of the two brothers, Jakob, romping around on his skidoo before hitching the transport sledge to it, and he couldn’t wait to try it for himself. I must say, it was spectacular. Jakob at once detached the heavy sledge, apparently honoured at our interest, and proceeded to give an acrobatic display with all manner of tricks. He even jumped the skidoo several times over a snow cornice. Mario, beside himself now, was desperate for a turn, but Jakob would have none of it. Hence, I still cannot tell you, even today, how a Canadian skidoo (for that’s where they are made) would stand up to an Italian ‘road-test’ ...
The low sun bathed the slopes in soft light. It was a highly romantic atmosphere. Gold and purple clouds stood high in the sky, while below – in what strange contrast – the young tearaway roared his machine across the wastes.
Several kilometres to the west we could now see a peninsula reaching far out to sea before falling away abruptly in a sheer cliff. That must surely be the North Cape – I remembered it from pictures. Jakob re-hitched the transport sledge to the skidoo and we moved higher up the gentle mountainside for a wide view over the sea and surrounding bays. Pulling to a halt on a broad flat patch, the two brothers gave us to understand that this would make a good campsite. They would take a skidoo in turn and go in search of reindeer, while the other waited here with us. Even if it irritated Mario and me to be left out in this way, it was clear that the Lapps would be better able to approach the animals without us. How long was it likely to take? Were we going to bivouac here for a whole day, perhaps? We tried to find out. But Jakob, the brother who could speak some words of German, explained to me that he did not know the answer – but here was Knut to stay with us. Then he leapt on to his skidoo and – ratta-tat-tat – made off at speed until he was nothing more than a tiny dot moving over the next hillock.
Knut now did something which seemed very peculiar to us: he began unloading both of the transport sledges. Why was everything to come off? We gave him a hand, without knowing what it was in aid of. He took one sledge and, with a single move, upended it in the snow. Then he did the same with the second, tilting it a bit so that the curved front-runners could be locked into a slot on the other. Immediately, we understood and at this point were impressed how simply and efficiently this Laplander was setting up a shelter – a solid wooden ‘house’ in a couple of easy moves! He adjusted the angle of the first sledge, so that not even a storm could dislodge it. (Was Don Whillans inspired by Lapps, I wondered, when he designed his famous bivouac box?) Already Knut was tugging a tarpaulin over the prepared framework. I had never heard of such a fantastic and simple invention, nor could I be sure even whether all Lapps knew of it.
Knut now clothed the floor of our little ‘house’ with reindeer skins, arranging them also up into the outer corners so that, in the end, the only snow you could see was a little in the entranceway. Meanwhile the light was fading. It was cold and humid and we were happy to crawl into the welcome warmth and snugness of the furs. The three of us fitted comfortably inside. Knut lit a small fire in front of him with a little bundle of birch twigs, taking care not to singe the furs. Soon its heat and smoke filled the enclosed space. We were lying on the ground, out of the worst of the smoke, which was drifting up through a hole in the roof. This accomplished, Knut yawned and uttered something which sounded like, ‘So ... ’ He looked first at Mario, and then – with a significant wink – at Mario’s rucksack. And Mario, clearly picking up the signal, opened his bag, where I was surprised to see the other two bottles of cognac. Knut either knew this already, or had deduced it from the chinking of glass. For a while the reindeer were forgotten – we left them to Jakob as the first bottle circulated. Knut was taking the most touching care of us – and the spirit. He even prepared hot tea for everyone, laced with cognac. True we could not speak to each other for, unlike his brother, he knew no word of German or English. It did not seem to matter: we smiled at each other warmly, and when the silences became too long, saved ourselves from embarrassment by offering each other another sip from the bottle. The atmosphere became increasingly relaxed until, finally, I fell asleep. In my dreams thundering herds of reindeer flowed by, like seething waves, thousands of animals with immense, nay, truly gigantic antlers ...
Ratta-tat-tat! The brother had returned. Reindeer? Well, he hadn’t found them yet, but – and he beamed in at us, passing a handful of eggs through the entrance, beautifully speckled, black and green – he did have a pretty fair idea where they might be. He indicated into the distance before – ratta-tat-tat! – disappearing once more.
Knut smiled pensively. Should we have scrambled eggs with cognac, or make advocaat? Mario was snoring. Before anyone could come to a decision about the eggs, brother Jakob returned – ratta-tat-tat! He’d found the reindeer! Knut sighed. I shook Mario awake. The dog, curled in the snow outside the tent, also came back to life. It was all systems go! We crawled out of the shelter on all fours. I searched for a good place to set up my tripod, somewhere with a good field of vision, then, with a Hey-oop! hoisted the heavy camera on to it. Knut, panting, fished out his lasso, and at Mario’s request donned a peculiar three-pointed hat, characteristic headgear of the Laplanders (though not, we were told firmly, when catching reindeer). Then we waited, breathless with tension.
Before long we see them coming! There, along the skyline and the gentle curve of the next hillock. They appear, one by one, so many, then more and more – all these reindeer at last! It is a Fata Morgana, a vision! No, it’s real – they are there, the reindeer we have been searching for for days! A fairy tale ...
I do not have to dream them now! In fact it’s imperative that I don’t dream at all. I must be wide awake now, make sure to do everything right; even the ground under my feet seems to be heaving (damned cognac!). Already I am picking up the deer in the long lens, am pressing the button … Now they are coming into the reach of my zoom. It looks fantastic as they draw closer ... the midnight sun gilds the slopes all round and every animal casts a long shadow. Some have antlers, others not, some smaller deer – babies, they must be – move in between. It is difficult to describe them: the slowly approaching herd is so much part of this northern landscape. The brown fur of some of the animals echoes the rocks which randomly stud the smooth, snow-covered hills; the mild grey of shadowed snow slopes and the pale hue of the northern twilight are all reproduced in the fur of others; and in their profusion the deer are at one with the constantly recurrent forms of this landscape, with its harmony – it could be a painting ... Kurt! Concentrate! You are here to film: action! Now, behind them, Jakob has appeared on his motor sledge, keeping his distance. He glides carefully in low gear closer to the animals, sometimes approaching from the left, then from the right. Close to me, I notice Knut, who has just begun moving towards them, too, with slow careful steps, the dog at his side, lasso in one hand. He keeps stopping and standing perfectly still. Mario stands a short way in front and to the side of me, since he is required to appear in at least one scene. Now the reindeer have stopped. They have apparently recognised Knut, who approaches them now without difficulty. A sudden swift move of his arm and the lasso hisses through the air. Some animals leap backwards, but, incredibly, the swaying figure of Knut has caught a reindeer at his first attempt! I am amazed that the other reindeer are not running away, but maybe they are used to this sort of thing. Meanwhile, I have already run out a lot of film, and I am really only missing a wild ‘storming herd’ sequence. But will I ever get that? Sooner than I think, as it turns out … Mario, all six feet of him and more, now makes his own gentle move towards the animals. But he must appear as some sort of monster to them, for the Lapps, who they are accustomed to, are a small people. Anyway, all of a sudden, there is a stirring in the throng and before we know it, the whole herd begins storming away! Drumming hooves, the sound muffled by snow, bodies streaking, head to head, horn to horn, passing across my lens – a beautiful shot! I keep pressing the button, eyes glued to the viewfinder, following them through the zoom and the tele-lens ... Photographs? I have none. Not a single picture. How can you film and take pictures together? Impossible, as many readers will know from their own experience.
It was a fine and unexpected end to our game of Blind Man’s Buff across the Arctic Circle. And Knut and Jakob kindly set us up a real Laplander’s tent later on, nearer to their home. It was made of birch trunks, covered in reindeer skins, and the whole family came and sat inside. The children had a lot of fun – and so, too, did we, even if this was not, by a long chalk, as original as the brothers’ traditional ‘Whillans box’ we had experienced the night before. For a long while the two families waved their goodbyes to the backs of the two strangers, as Mario and I, burdened with reindeer skins as well as our gear, returned to ‘downtown’ Honningsvog.
On the drive back to Alta, I have to say, three times reindeer jumped across the road! They are everywhere and nowhere ...
I took home two skins, which I’d purchased from Jakob and Knut – one dark, the other white. Ever since, the house has been filled with wafting hairs – so many, they must outnumber all the reindeer in Scandinavia!
***
The next destination for our magic carpet was Newfoundland, followed by the thousand kilometres of Labrador’s coastline. One day I find myself sitting opposite an Eskimo, staring into a hole in the ice. He has cut it in the frozen sea on which he is standing. The line in his hand moves up and down, up and down as he waits for the next fish. And another, and another ... Endless patience. Again, I have the feeling of having reached the edge of the world. A different edge ...
It was a pity we could not stay longer. Soon it was on to South America.