01.14.05
Herding reindeer
The man in Smith’s was wearing jeans and a lavish baby-blue jacket picked out with thread of all the brightest colours. My guess was that it was a traditional Lapp coat. Not quite.
“I was in Iceland,” he told the woman behind the counter. “I was herding reindeer. I wrote a book about it.”
She asked him the name of the book. He looked slightly embarrassed.
“It was never published. But I did write it.”
She asked him if he’d seen that film, you know, the one about the crying camel.
“Yes I did.”
It was in Outer Mongolia, or somewhere.
“Yes.”
Did he like it?
“I was in Iceland. Herding reindeer.”
Peter said,
January 14, 2005 at 9:44 pm
I hardly like to say this but I have this terrible feeling that, um, there aren’t any reindeer in Iceland. certainly nothing I read for the north book suggested that there were. There are plenty of reindeer in Finnmark, northernmost Norway, where are also the labyrinth-makers and reindeer-herders the Sami. I saw one last May quietly eating seaweed because the grass hadn’t come up yet.
Jon said,
January 15, 2005 at 10:50 am
I suppose this may help to explain why the book didn’t find a publisher.
skotta said,
May 19, 2005 at 10:44 am
There are Reindeers in Iceland…about 3000 of them. They are wild (other about 6 of them that are in pettingzoos)
They aren´t herded, they are hunted in the fall.