Spildra

From the island port,

The gravel road curves

In the cliff's embrace

To where the clouds kiss the mountains

In a Conan Doyle world

And three birds swim silent

On a hidden lake. 

Through brush and tree branches 

We choose to fall

And fight our way downwards

In an endless dusk.

The beach is empty 

Save for us.

Crows cry our coordinates from above.

On Goats (An Interview)

Marthe has a full time job as a photo-curator, but has started working part-time on a remote farm looking after goats. I decided to find out more about why she wanted to do this and what it is like. 

You already had a full time job, so what made you want to start working with goats in a barn?

I think there are two reasons. The first one is that although I like my job and I enjoy what I'm doing, it's quite nice to do something completely different. With the goats, I go in there and I'm working 100% the whole time. It's very physical. I have to constantly make sure that all the goats are alright.

Apart from wanting a job that was more active, I remembered that a few years back I actually applied to become a budeie for a summer job. Traditionally, a budeie used to be a young girl working up in the mountains for the summer, living alone and taking care of the cows or goats on summer pastures. I went abroad that summer instead, but there's obviously been some interest in me to work with animals.

Can you give a quick description of what the job involves?

In the summer, when the weather is good, I come to the barn and the goats are all outside. So I go up in the mountains where they're roaming around, and I've got a bell I can ring so they can hear my bell if I can't see them. I also yell for them to come. Sometimes there can be a bit of walking involved, but so far, this early in the summer, they haven't been walking so far away from their house.

It's a really gorgeous feeling when I spot the goats and they start running towards me with their "baaah"s and the bell going "ding-ding-ding-ding-ding." We're both really happy to see each other. I'm happy to see the goats, that I don't have to go trekking to find them, and they're ecstatic that someone has come to collect them.

Then we go back to the barn and it's the milking with an automatic milking machine. I get 12 and 12 goats up to be milked. I have to make sure I don't milk any goats that are ill. If they're on medication I can't mix their milk in with the others', and I also have to make sure that none of the goats have become ill or got hurt whilst they were out. I give them some "power food" whilst they're being milked. It takes quite a long time because I've got 87 goats that I milk. Obviously, there's that little bit of excitement when I get to the end of the shift and it's like, "Have I got the right number of goats today, or did I leave some in the field?"

I also have to make sure that the barn is nice and clean. I feed the hens and rabbits, clean equipment and so on.

How would you characterise goats as animals?

Cute! They're really trusting. They are possibly not the most clever animals in the world, but they certainly know what's going on. They've got their habits. When I milk, I know which goats come first and which are the last ones, and it's always the same ones; my three last goats are always the same three. There's one that likes to run up to the milking ramp first, but then she gets really confused because she always stands there second, so she has to run back and forth a bit so that she can be second. So they're animals of habit, but they're also very trusting and quite cuddly. 

Has working with goats changed your relationship to this place or the animals around us here?

I'm not sure that it has. I guess I'm more conscious of how few people there are left that keep farm animals. There used to be loads of barns here where we live, but now there are only two that keep goats and a couple of sheep farms. There's room for many more.

I think the first time I went into the barn I was afraid that they might bite me or run me down, because 80 animals: there's quite a lot of power there. And they have sometimes crushed me a bit, but I'm not afraid of them. I think in the beginning I was kind of nervous about how they would treat me and how I would treat them, but not anymore. They nibble a bit but they don't bite.

What's your favourite thing about the job?

My favourite thing is when I see them coming towards me, running down the mountainside, all happy. But also, just being physically active and taking care of someone who's dependent on you for their wellbeing.  

Anything else to say?

Only that I would recommend to people to work on a farm for a summer if they could. It's hard physical work, but you learn a lot that you never thought you would learn about, and it's really fun. 

 Many thanks to Marthe for the photos, video and interview. 

Riddu Riddu

Riddu Riddu takes place in Kåfjord, in a valley between two mountains but well above sea level. It's a festival of Sami culture and aboriginal art and music from around the world. This year it was 21 years old. Riddu Riddu is small. It's one of the most important festivals of its kind, but is spread out across only three fields and has just one stage. The main event takes place at the weekend  but throughout the preceding week there are workshops, films and performances.

In a money-raising exercise for the local choir, Marthe and I agreed to volunteer as night security for the festival on Saturday. We started work at 6pm and worked through until 10am. Everyone took turns doing different jobs throughout the night, including watching a roundabout and providing backstage security. Marthe and I were lucky enough to end up working together in a group with one other person.

The first band to play were a Chinese (I think) three-piece who played an intense, repetitive gothy music in weird time signatures. I got the chance to watch some of their set, which was performed to maybe 150 people. They'd come a long way up into the Norwegian mountains for the show and there was something quite wonderful about being one of the few people to see it. On the whole their performance seemed to create quiet confusion, but I really liked what they were doing. 

Harpal, Bill, if you're reading, I miss you gentlemen.

Later there were a group of rockers from Greenland, whose vibe I couldn't get with, and a high-profile Sami band who mixed their folk music with 80s romcom soundtrack stylings. These acts were followed by Narasirato, a band from the Solomon Islands, whose instruments were all made of bamboo. Wearing what looked like traditional tribal dress, they played a lively dance music in which all the notes came from different sized panpipes and tuned percussion. It rained while they played and at that point it was our job to watch the VIP bar, where I was given a dressing down from one of the organisers for not recognising a famous Sami singer who wanted to come in, but that job didn't require three people so I got to see half of the Narasirato performance. They had the crowd with them all the way. I felt happy that I had earlier let one of their members into the backstage area even though he'd forgotten his pass.

Mist settled over the valley for the last act of the night, a group called Totalteatret. I get the impression that these guys played Riddu Riddu around 10 years ago and this performance was something of a homecoming. They mixed storytelling with punk, rap and agitprop, something like an arctic Chumbawamba. Some years ago they had regional hit with a tune about people shooting holes in Sami street-signs. This reminded me of similar battles in Wales, so I guess street signage is often a major issue in areas where a language has been suppressed. The song shared its drum beat with Walk This Way by Aerosmith and Run DMC, and the audience liked it so much that the band played it twice. 

Totalteatret

After Totalteatret were finished there was an exodus from the main stage to the camping area and we were unlucky enough to be stuck on the gate checking wristbands for entry. Marthe was good at this because she's good at smiling, but I struggled somewhat. It's interesting to me that it was mostly older drunks, those of my own age and beyond, who needed to make a point of such mini acts of rebellion as refusing to show their pass and just scowling at me while walking on into the camping area. It was past 2am and I was beginning to get irritable. "Fine, ignore me," I shouted after one of them. "I don't know what you're so proud of. I've been to better gigs on a Tuesday."

But our night was still young and the sun doesn't set here, as you know. We were yet to go litter picking in the camping field, where people played drums and tried to make conversation. Later, around 5am, we were sent up the hill to check any coming cars for festival passes and watch people wandering lost, one foot at a time, out of the gate and down towards the village. Two people found themselves a car to make love in. One man called a taxi and when it arrived he climbed into the front seat and just said, "Drive me home." 

By this point time was like syrup we were swimming through. Minutes expanded while mosquitoes made endless attempts to suck our blood. The end of the final shift found everyone gathered in or around the lavvo, a large tent with a fire in the middle and smoke in the air. Marthe went to sleep and I wandered round in circles.

When it was all over I felt too tired to sleep. The music and festivities seemed a long time ago. On the bus home I tried to jot down a few images in my notebook, but the bus entered a tunnel, I lost my reading light, and that is as much as I recall of the journey.

Backstage Security