SURVIVAL IN SAMILAND, Cultural cookbook and stories after seasons in the Swedish mountains, is an important and unique book.

The lives of both the indigenous people in Scandinavia; the Sami and the pioneers in the Swedish northern mountains were hard.
Mostly because of the climate they had to be both creative and cooperative when times were tough.
Usually you read about problems when two cultures have to live together sharing the same space.
There are other more positive stories too. This is one of them and this book is a proof of those good things can be created when we come together and share our knowledge.
In the book you will also find a number of specially selected recipes from Annica, Karin and families of pupils at the school Saxnäs, Vilhelmina.
Still, it is the recipes importance from a cultural perspective that is the books theme: how the lives and food followed the changing seasons and how their lives were influenced by the landscape in which they lived and worked. Read the stories about how Sami and pioneer families in Vilhelminas mountain villages used to live, when this was still roadless land... The authors upbringing and experiences of mountain culture have formed the basis of the books content. This meeting of generations in their home surroundings is unique.

When I was born in the early 50's survived the main population in Norrland's inland self household. My father worked at the National Vattenfall planning to build out river Vindelälven for electricity production. Thankfully protested the population against the expansion and was heard by a vigorous parliamentary woman who stopped the plans. Today, I rejoice to own land on both sides of Vindelälven now Sweden's national river.In my family we have 5 generations belonged to a strong settlers who established us in Norrland's inland and mountainous regions in the early 1800s. Meat and crops came from the farm and timber for our buildings came from our own pine forest. Game animals were hunted mainly for sale. There were cash to buy the supplies that were not produced in the household itself.I still put potatoes in the same ground where my grandfather's grandfather began to grow it for the first time in the early 1830s. In my youth, it was a given that I would learn to take care of everything produced on our farm. My mother and her family came from the same traditions in Vilhelminafjällen. There, I came to work for 13 years as a teacher at Saxnäs school. An 1-9 school where the teachers taught in many subjects. Some years I was responsible also for home economics education there and came to the realization that many students no longer carrying the elderly traditions within the household.The recognition that cultural heritage was disappearing resulted in me locally based teaching in both history and home economics together with the school's outdoor profile constituted an educational whole. Cooperation with the Sami villages and field trips to Norway and the Nordic Museum in Stockholm framed the students knowledge of the traditions. Annica Grundström