When Hansi was going to school there was no road yet. His father had the year before gotten a tractor from a neighbor, for transporting firewood. It was driven to Karigasniemi, where the night was spent in a travellers hostel. Early in the morning the bus to Inari would leave, and from Inari the school children were taken to Konesjärvi by taxi. From Konesjärvi the children would walk to Riutula to school, and stay there until it was time to go home for Christmas. Länsman used the new road from Inari to Angeli for the first time after having completed his military service.

After the road was built the forests became interesting for the state; logged timber was now possible to transport easily. Now, some thirty years later, clearcut areas break up the forest and logging waste is sticking up through the snow. The reindeer herders are being blamed for having too many reindeer that make the grazing forests suffer. „When there were no fences in between different co-operatives‘ areas there were tens of thousands of reindeer in Paadarskaidi, and there was enough lichen for each one,“ Hansi Länsman remembers. „Nobody talked about overgrazing.“

Hansi shows on the map where the reindeer were moving before and where they move now. He himself has the map of the area in his head. When he was learning to work with reindeer he had to learn to know the shapes of the landscape and the landmarks. „I would go as far as I could find the way.“ The landscape has however changed with the logging. New roads make the reindeer and almost also its herder get lost. „The bases for those roads are so wide that even though the road is only about 5 to 6 meters, it destroys the lichen for at least 10 meters on both sides because that’s how wide they make the base.“

These days the reindeer start to move from winter grazing areas northward earlier in spring. Hansi Länsman tells us that they have to open the fences so that they can find places where they find lichen. He then shows us an area in the map that is rocky and spotted with small ponds. „This area used to be very good to stop the reindeer, they would stay here to dig for a couple of weeks. Now it’s logged so that there are only a few trees left. Some reindeer can walk for twenty kilometers. „They stop only when they come to the fence on the border of our co-operative.“ The northern part of the Muotkatunturi co-operative is mainly fell area, suitable for summer grazing. „I was just recently driving around the area counting wolverines I saw the snow being so hard not even the devil could survive there.“

„I have tried not to drive any hay to the reindeer, because the reindeer is supposed to nourish us, we are not supposed to nourish the reindeer.“ Some winters the conditions can be specially harsh. One winter there was a meter and a half of snow, and then Länsman had to feed them with hay. „Poor reindeer couldn’t dig anything, but luckily there is not so much snow now.“

A wolverine had killed one of Hansi’s best females recently. His fellow co-operative herder had found her after two eagles, another wolverine, and two foxes had visited the carcass. All of these animals belong to the nature, says Länsman, also the wolverine when there are no too many of them. „It’s nice to move around in the nature when there are different kinds of animals.“ Recently he has seen tracks of eagles, wolverines, ravens and martens. Additionally close to the border to the national park there had been plenty of skiing tourists heading to ice fish on one of the lakes close by.

The valuable forests are now used mainly to pulp industry. Developing local industry hasn’t been popular among decision makers. Hansi doesn’t believe that the timber is going to produce enough in the current way: „Metsähallitus could give them something else to do, because in this wilderness logging is not very profitable. These trees would make nice furniture, but they don’t refine the timber, only cook it for pulp and then make paper. That is not very valuable.“

The future of reindeer herding is an open question. According to Hansi it is a bold decision to become a reindeer herder these days. „The livelihood is becoming more threatened and it would probably be a good idea to get an education first, before deciding on becoming a reindeer herder.“ Hansi’s godson, a young schoolboy, is sitting at the table and starts to tell about his worries in Sámi language.He has brought his snow scooter with him and wants to know whether Hansi has some welding equipment so that they could fix the steering. Another worry is whether he will be able to take part in marking the calves in the summer.