268 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



across the river from each bank. Again, the natives fished all 

 the good pools harling with a long narrow spoon, two rods 

 in each boat, primitive affairs certainly but effective, 6 feet 

 long birch sticks with loops of wire for rings ; a cotton line 

 wound round a reel, often self-made, with a handle taken from 

 a coffee grinder. Many of them are now, however, equipped with 

 modern reels and tackle, which can be purchased at any of the 

 town stores. The population in these parts is entirely riverine, 

 only reindeer herds were now in the interior ; all the males are 

 fishermen, and everybody lives on salmon, supplemented by 

 reindeer meat, bread, coffee, and milk. A few cows and sheep 

 graze about the scarce homesteads, the patch of grass, hopeless 

 though it is this year, near the house being kept for hay. The 

 surplus hay not required for boot stuffing is given to the cattle 

 in the winter, largely mixed with dried and salted refuse of fish, 

 all of which is carefully preserved during the fishing season, 

 and afterwards eagerly eaten by the cows. 



My men as all the Lapps on this river wear their full 

 national costume; it is rather faded certainly with work, but 

 very picturesque for all that ; it has merely lost the brightness 

 of the Sunday dress. A loose, dark blue and woollen cloth 

 overcoat with high stiff collar, open at the throat, is confined 

 to the waist by a red and white embroidered sash. The coat 

 is trimmed round the neck and edges, across the chest and back, 

 to half-way down the sleeves in front and behind, by red and 

 yellow braid ; the same colours are let into the seams. A pair 

 of tight white woollen trousers lose themselves in wide brown 

 leather boots stuffed with hay, the uppers of which are secured 

 to the leg by a long and narrow white puttie, again embroidered 

 with red thread. A neckerchief, with pocket at each end, 

 containing tobacco, and a peculiar cap with large square top 

 and far projecting corners stuffed with feathers over a broad 

 crimson band, completes the costume ancient as it is pictur- 

 esque. A large knife hangs from the girdle, and is put to 

 every possible use. The women wear short red and white 

 striped gowns and a close-fitting brilliantly red bonnet. These 

 Lapps up the river, not those miserable creatures who are to 

 be seen begging on the various steamboat landings, are splendid 

 fellows and magnificent boatmen, strong and enduring. They 

 will pole a heavy canoe up a rapidly running river from early 



