Our history

The owners Both Nils and Carina have their roots in this area and have grown up with a close connection to the reindeer herding and the Sàmi lifestyle. Nils has been a reindeer herder for more than 25 years and has a lot of experience in working with reindeer. Together we decided to start the tourism business, Nutti Sámi Siida.   The start We started our activities in the autumn 1996. Due to ice on the ground and lot of snow the natural grazing for the reindeer was bad. To prevent them from starving we decided to feed them in corrals during the winter. Buying factory made food was expensive and we got the idea to receive visitors to the reindeer corral and in that way finance the feeding.   We contacted Yngve Bergqvist at the Icehotel to find out if they were interested to send guest to us. A cooperation started and we have since then been Icehotels main supplier of Sámi activities.

Training reindeer Nils’s father Henrik, who had used reindeer and sleds for transportation before the entry of the snowmobile, repaired his old reindeer harnesses. With his knowledge and help we started to tame and train reindeer to pull sleds. We wanted to learn the skills ourselves but also give our visitors the opportunity to drive with reindeer and sled.    Nutti Sámi Siida The first winter went well and we continued to feed our whole herd for two more winters and kept on receiving visitors. The tourist business became a good extra income to the reindeer herding. As the tourist activities grew, we started in 1999 a separate tourist company; Nutti Sámi Siida. Siida is Sámi language and means winter group. The sameby´s reindeer herding is during the winter divided in smaller winter groups, often family groups.   The tourism has become a development of the reindeer herding and the connection between our tourism business and the reindeer herding is very important and also necessary.   >>Back