Photo Essay » Dances with reindeer
Photographs from this essay are available for licensing.
I bounced over the frozen tundra behind an ancient Russian Buran snowmobile, clinging to the sides of a wooden sled. A half moon slid past overhead, barely visible through my frost-covered eyelashes. Larch branches, like skeletal fingers, tore at my clothes and boots as we surged through the taiga forest.
We were on the last leg of a 125-mile snowmobile-sled ride to a traditional reindeer farming camp north of the Arctic Circle in Siberia. We began our journey that morning in Zhigansk, a town of 4,000 Evenki and Yakut people on the Lena River. 60 miles northward, we had stopped in Kystatem, a village of 400 mainly Evenki farmers and fishermen. Our goal was a temporary camp on the shores of a frozen lake, where we would be able to observe a day in the life of a Siberian reindeer farming family.
With a lurch and some cursing in Russian, the sled suddenly stopped and the lawnmower-throb of the Buran fell silent. I peeled off the layers of fleece covering my face and assessed the situation. Our companions, including our only Russian speaker, were out of sight ahead. It was approaching midnight and the temperature hovered right around -10 F. Our driver grunted and motioned to the moonlit trail ahead.
After fifteen minutes of plodding down the trail, enough time for me to ponder just how long it would take us to freeze to death in these conditions, rescue arrived in the form of a second Buran. The sled was switched over, we hopped on and a half hour later we roared into a clearing with a snug log cabin.
A wave of steam greeted me as I opened the stout wooden door. I shook the spindrift from my jacket and started stripping off layers, basking in the heat from a wood-burning stove. Tea was quickly prepared and a steaming mug warmed my fingers. Bread, pickles, and reindeer meat were thrust in my hands.
Maria, the family matriarch, commanded us to eat, while smearing bear fat on a frostbite wound one of our drivers was nursing. As my eyes adjusted to the light from a single incandescent bulb, they registered faces peering out from the wooden benches lining the sides of the cabin. Five men and boys, Evenki reindeer farmers from the same extended family, regarded us with a mixture of amazement and amusement. They didn't get a lot of visitors here.
We woke the next morning without ceremony, and tea and bread made the rounds as we crawled back into our layers, a mixture of modern-- capilene, fleece, camouflage overalls, and traditional--reindeer hide boots and fur-lined hats. As the sunlight trickled weakly through the trees, we piled onto the sleds again and zipped off through the forest to the center of a frozen lake.
The Evenki banged on the snowmobiles and called out with hoarse barks. In minutes we were surrounded by a hundred reindeer. Like tame dogs, they nuzzled the men for small blocks of salt and gentle pats on the nose. Most were chestnut brown dappled with white, a few were snowy white.
The herders selected two of the biggest reindeer and lassoed them with a handmade rope. They made saddles from blankets and the two smallest family members mounted the reindeer. Using both the mounted reindeer and Burans, they drove the herd across the frozen surface of the lake. The brown and white river of fur and antlers swept across the snow to a corral made of rough-hewn wooden planks. The reindeer stomped in a circle, compacting the 4 feet of powder to a hard surface. Around and around they walked as the herders noted the fitness and health of their charges. After a half-hour, the reindeer were freed through the same gate that let them in, and snorting white clouds into the Siberian air, they charged off into the forest.
