Subj : Kids & Reindeer
To   : Paul Quinn
From : Ardith Hinton
Date : Tue Jan 02 2018 23:36:29

Hi, Paul!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

 AH>  Interesting thought.  The kid in the song was anxiously
 AH>  awaiting his new chompers because then... as he said
 AH>  with a lisp... "I could wish you Merry Christmas." AFAIK
 AH>  he didn't complain about having to read aloud in class.

 PQ>  There you go... it kinda proves the addage, "ah, youth,
 PQ>  it's so wasted on the young".


          Yes & no.  Kids have the energy to keep on trying until they get it 
right... and there's no shame when their age mates are in the same boat.  ;-)



 [WRT the use of reindeer for pulling sleds Over Yonder]
 PQ>  My only guide is a wonderful Ray Mears 'bushcraft'
 PQ>  documentary made about living in various locales in
 PQ>  Sweden.  The only four-legged sled prime movers were
 PQ>  dogs.


          I should have said reindeer are used in parts of Scandinavia.

          If you or I were to travel to Sweden we might find very few reindeer 
used for serious transportation nowadays.  When I tried googling for more info 
on the subject I got a bunch of ads for tourist lodges which offer brief rides 
in sleighs pulled by reindeer.  Apart from that, it's a challenge for those of 
us who live elsewhere to figure out what's going on & why.  What I was able to 
piece together is that the Chernobyl accident decimated many reindeer herds in 
Sweden & that in some areas only the Sami people... AKA Lapps or Laplanders... 
are allowed to herd reindeer.  I gather Norway has similar restrictions, but I 
found no evidence of legal limits on sled dogs in Sweden or any other country.

          When I look up Ray Mears, however, I'm informed that on his visit to 
Sweden in 2004-2005 he filmed Samis using sled dogs.  Colour me confused.  :-)



 PQ>  My bad for having a solitary information source.  :)


          In general, I'd suggest using more than one... but I can't blame you 
if I'm reminded of the "back-to-the-land" movement which occurred in Z1 during 
the 1970's.  There were books & magazines aplenty for those who wanted to take 
up farming in e.g. Alaska, many offering advice which could be applied by city 
gardeners and/or folks with a summer cottage closer to home.  Ray Mears may be 
very skilled at making documentaries like the one Dallas & I watched about how 
somebody built a log cabin in Finland.  I can't blame him for not going into a 
detailed explanation of how things work for a relatively small number of folks 
who live in more isolated northern areas of whichever country.  Some of my own 
sources may have been overly brief &/or outdated WRT this topic... [wry grin].




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)

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