Reindeer Races Above the Arctic Circle
Celebrating winter with the Sámi people of Lapland

Australian photojournalist Isabella Moore traveled to northern Sweden to partake and document the Jokkmokk Winter Market celebrated every February for over 400 years by the Sámi, the indigenous people of the region. There are around 70,000 Sámi residing in Sápmi, which consists of the Arctic and subarctic regions of Sweden, Finland, Norway, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. The Winter Market festival attracts thousands of Sámi and tourists to explore their distinct culture through folk dancing, traditional dress, and the iconic reindeer caravan and races.

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As an Australian with Peruvian heritage, I have always been drawn to people and cultures diverse to my own classic, anglo saxon upbringing in Sydney. I am interested in the meaning and the soul connection people draw from their cultural identity. How that meaning embeds itself in one's connection to belonging; belonging to their self and belonging to those who are driven by the same connection.

This is why when I was told about the Jokkmokk Winter Market by a Sámi friend, I knew I wanted to go and experience what I saw as a profound and eclectic celebration of Sámi culture. To me, the most visually recurring element of the Jokkmokk Winter Market is the reindeer. Among it all, it felt like a celebration of the reindeer - the animal most pivotal and sacred to the Sámi. It was important to me to ask the reindeer race herders what the reindeer meant to them. When my Sami friend told me that they were the reason you wake up in the morning and the reason you go to bed at night, I was touched and astonished at the same time that I'd learned an all encompassing factor of what I had to set out to find.

I witnessed a beautiful pride emanating from the Sámi people during this busy, crazy week at the Jokkmokk Winter Market. It was a kind of cultural parade, with it's sale of reindeer skins, snow fashion show, Sami handicrafts and the skill displayed of the men running the reindeer races over Talvatissjön Lake. It was a chance for the Sámi to celebrate and to be celebrated by visitors from all over the world.

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