The location of the sites and the main field base at Finnmark University College, Alta, from Google Earth (left), and as a map where main vegetation types are shown (dark green = coniferous forest; bright green = mountain birch forest; purple = tundra)

Joatkanjávri: at the limit between the mountain chain and the Baltic Shied; the geology and topography create maximally sharp gradients of primary productivity.

Iešjávri: largest tundra lake in Fennoscandia; islands provide unique opportunities to manipulate the grazing web

Raisduottar: a reindeer fence built in the 1960’s cuts right across one of the floristically richest mountain areas in Fennoscandia, dividing it into two radically different grazing treatments

Joatkanjávri has so far been my main site of research as it provides easy access to three entirely different landscape types, with major differences in primary productivity

Highland: covered by hard and nutrient-poor overthurst plates (metamorphosed sandstone);

Slope: nutrient-rich shale is exposed, moisture is plentiful and microclimate is maximally favorable.

Lowland = Baltic Shield; nutrient-poor granitic rocks; low winter precipitation; permafrost common

Conditions arctic rather than alpine, especially so on the Lowland (Oksanen and Virtanen 1995, Acta Botanica Fennica 153: 1-80), which has cold & arid climate; annual precipitation only 345 mm

Above, left: map of the Joatkanjávri area; shades = vegetation density (NDVI: bright red = high; deep blue = low)

Circles: locations of live-trapping grids; index trapping grids in a line along the S-N axis of the area

Above, right: view from the Slope right above the field base towards SE over the Lowland

Below: the field base seen from the edge of the overthrust cliff….

…..and a cross section, showing the geological conditions, which create the differences in primary productivity (left); in a larger scale NDVI-satellite map the for arctic conditions extremely high productivity of the south facing slope is easy to see (right; red = productive, yellow intermediate, green unproductive, light blue: barren)

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Indeed, Joatkanjávri is just not a place for doing fieldwork. It is even a very nice place to stay in the good care of the hosts – Britta (“Rihta”) and Helge Romsdal, their daughters Lisa, Lena and Siv, and their families. Now the place has been taken over by Lisa’s husband Steinar Kristensen, who has promptly started to modernize it, but without compromising the cozy atmosphere.

Just to show how I appreciate the place, and the people running it, I have “edited” a well-known Bellman song “Fjärlin’ vingad syns i Haga” to suit for Joatkanjávri. (Sorry, it is in old Swedish – that was the language used by Bellman)

Fjällvråksvingar vi oppdaga

fritt efter Fredmans sång N:o 64; Carl Michael Bellman

Fjällvråksvingar vi oppdaga
mellan dimmors frost och dun,
de längs gröna liden jaga,
feta sorkar ta till bon;
minsta kräk i kärr och syra,
det får stackars labben ha,
lämlar ger den högtids yra
då må labbens ungar bra

Joatka, i ditt sköte blommar
”solens knopp^(1” och lappblågull
stolt i dina rännlar skummar
bäcken, kantad av snöull
Längst på tundravidder härja
gnagarna – det blåser kallt
där kan ingen busk’ sig värja,
där tar sork och lämmel allt.

Se hur sluttningens dryader
dansande gå hand i hand
och de trofiska kaskader
skydda dem mot sorkens tand;
vallen blommar, gräset grönskar,
röda stugan värme ger
Med den bästa mat du önskar
Britta väntar där och ler.

1) That’s how the Sámi name for Trollius europaeus – beaivinođđu = the bud of the sun – translates to Swedish)