Emily Thornberry MP's Blog

Valentine's eve in a spermaladeco

Valentine's eve was a hard day. It was cold with grey snow ladened sky.

The pulled muscle was quite undermining as it affects so much of what I wanted to do. I couldn't walk in deep snow or push on the sled very easily. I couldn't even get on the snow mobile for a lift because my leg just didn't work. Tobias said as I hobbled to the sled "How's morale Emily?". I said "awful Tobias, awful".

Having said that though, when we were due to leave, I was trying to get the anchor/grapple thing out of the ground and not doing all that well. I couldn't pull it out. In fact, I couldn't even get down to pull it out. It had also frozen into the ground. In the gym, Serbo was making me do dead-lifts of 80 kilos and now I couldn't even lift an anchor! Hugo, who is the guy in charge of the dogs, started shouting at me. Whilst I was shouting back at him that I was trying, Tobias came over and pulled the anchor out for me, which was really sweet of him.

Things really started going down hill when I couldn't find Margaret's St. Christopher. I realised that I had dropped it. I was either somewhere in the snow or in my suit. I managed to find it eventually and felt much better having done so. After lunch, I fell again when the slender lady dogs were up to their tricks. They kept stopping to file their nails and have a chat. The snow got very deep and I couldn't scoot to help them. It was hopeless.

The best part of the day was the fishing. Tiasto, a man who wears nothing but seal fur, was in charge of teaching us how to fish. He was very polite but clearly convinced that we weren't going to catch anything. We all gamely dangled our rods into holes in the ice. The fishing rods looked like toys, which underlined our attitude that it was all a bit of a laugh.

Tiasto looking for fish

But my line twitched. I told the man with me, who's name I don't know. He is referred to as "Marcus's sidekick" or "the Norwegian". He didn't believe me but the line twitched again and he was less sure. I started to reel it up anyway and blow me there was a fish on the end. I screamed. Fish and line and hook plunged back into the hole, but the Norwegian shoved his arm into the water and caught. It was a huge freshwater burbot. It was gutted and the fish liver and roe left out to freeze. The rest of the guts were about to be discarded and Nick Clegg said this would surely cement my reputation as a woman not to be messed with.

I felt enormously proud of myself. I had never been fishing like that ever before and had managed to catch a fish in ten minutes. My morale, Tobias, was pretty good by that stage.

I was exhausted when we got to the hut. No water or electricity. But we did have a fire, cooker, beds and a spermaldeco (Sami for "sperm box").

That evening, It turned out to be cooler inside Meerilees' sleeping bag than it is outside. This was because her bag has been in the sled all day and although we got to the hut at 4pm it still hasn't fully frozen.

We managed to get the fire going as we cooked for everyone. Everyone crowded in for supper and it was really warm. In fact, it was -26 C outside the hut and +26.5C inside! We had to cook with melted snow, by candlelight. We couldn't cook the fish because it had frozen, so we left it to thaw and had it for breakfast.

Arctic wisdom - fishing

Fishing has always been important for the Sámi, both as a source of food and income.  For those who herd reindeer, fishing has saved them in years when the grazing is poor.  During the summer months, when many of the reindeer herders are living in isolated homes in the mountains, fish becomes the main source of food. In the autumn, it is common to catch fish and freeze them for the winter.

Over time a fishing trade became established where fish buyers used boats, helicopters and aeroplanes to buy fish from the families who lived and fished in the most distant mountain lakes.  Arctic char and whitefish were the most common species of fish caught for this ‘cash fishing’ that was most active during the 1970s. 

These days the importance of cash fishing has declined and there are only a small number of Sámi who live solely from fishing, but fishing for an additional income is important.  Small- scale fishing is also very important to meet the nutritional needs of all households.

Fishing advice from an MP

At the party last night Martin Salter had recommended that when doing my ice fishing I add a feather earring to the bait to attract fish. I had laughed it off and yet this morning I found myself in M&S, having been drawn to the earrings display.

It probably wouldn't work, a friend of mine pointed out. The fish in the artic are not likely to have wide experience of insects - so fly fishing is probably not the technique.

Still may have a look for some at the airport - you never know... what harm could it do?