Gidda – Springtime (May-June)
The winter is the longest season in the far North, summertime is very short and the transition periods of spring and autumn last only for a couple of weeks. North of the polar circle, the winter lasts from mid/end of November until end of April. But wintertime in April is totally different to wintertime in December which is the darkest month of the year. Therefore, dividing the year into only four seasons is way too simple.
The Sami know eight different seasons. The Sami arrived in this area soon after the last ice age and have been living with the rhythm of nature for thousands of years. They have observed the changes in nature quite thoroughly. And even today the seasons still dictate people’s live here, which activities you can do outdoors and how to dress.
Gidda – springtime in Sami – is in May and June. The snow is smelting and the migrating birds are returning to their breeding places. In the beginning of May the reindeer calves are born and the sun is slowly warming the earth.
For me, spring is both a sad an unresting time. Winter is gone and I have to stow away my skiers and my pulk in the shed. It takes a very long time until all the snow is gone and during this time nature is mostly inaccessible. There is still too much snow on the trekking paths to walk on them; but, at the same time, it is not enough snow for skiing or snowshoeing. And when the snow is finally gone, most of the paths are so muddy that I look like as if I had taken a mud-bath after some kilometers. I always feel restless during this time because nature seems to be so far away.
Yesterday I was thinking of one of my favorite poems which describes my yearning for nature quite well:
The call oft he wild
Have you gazed on naked grandeur
Where there´s nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley
With the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence?
Then for God´s sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sagebrush desolation,
the bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?
Have you whistled bits of rag-time at the end of all creation,
And learned to know the desert´s little ways?
Have you camped upon the foothills,
have you galloped o´er the ranges,
Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through?
Have you chummed up with the mesa?
Do you know its moods and changes?
Then listen to the Wild – it´s calling you.
Have you know the Great White Silence,
not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver?
Have you broken trail on snowshoes? Mushed your huskies up the river,
Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?
Have you marked the map´s void spaces, mingled with the mongrel races,
Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?
And though grim as hell the worst is,
can you round it off with curses?
Then hearken to the Wild – it´s wanting you.
Have you suffered, starved and triumphed,
groveled down, yet grasped at glory,
Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?
„Done things“ just fort he doing, letting babblers tell the story,
Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?
Have you seen God in His splendors,
heard the text that nature renders?
The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things –
Then listen tot he Wild – it´s calling you.
They have cradled you in custom,
they have primed you with their preaching,
They have soaked you in convention through and through;
They have put you in a showcase; you´re a credit to their teaching –
But can´t you hear the Wild? – it´s calling you.
Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
There´s a whisper on the night-wind,
there´s a star agleam to guide us,
And the Wild is calling, calling … let us go.
Robert William Service