The Skolt Lapps Today

On the conclusion of the Second World War, Finland was obliged to cede its northeasternmost territory of Petsamo to the Soviet Union. Amongst those who lost their homes were around four hundred representatives of the original native population of the territory, the Skolt Lapps. The Skolts were subsequently resettled in two 'reservations' marked out in the wilderness of Finland's present northeastern borderlands. The contemporary organization of the Skolt community in the larger of these reservations, the Sevettijärvi area, is the subject of this 1976 study. The first part of the book the ecological imbalance created by technological innovation and commercial penetration; the second analyses the the activities and relationships built up on the fixes template of the resettlement plan; and the third explores the business of 'leap-frog' politics, which links the community into the machinery of modern government and the forum of debate on the future of native minorities.