Wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson accompanies Sami
Joiker, Andé Sombe, on a journey up a mountain on the Lofoten islands in Norway
to explore the relationship between the sounds of the mountain, the people and
the wildlife.
As Chris discovers, for many Norwegians the soundscape is
part of the fascination and attraction of the mountains. The mountains offer an
escape from urban and man-made noise to Nature’s symphony which is composed
amongst other things of the sounds of running water produced by the glacial
streams, the whisper and roar of the wind, the chorus of song birds and the cry
of soaring ravens high overhead.
Looking around Chris is reminded that this is an Arctic
landscape but in recent years the glacial ice has been melting in some of
Norway’s highest mountains and we learn how a team of archaeologists have been
recovering thousands of artefacts, some of which date back 6,000 years.
But it is also the quality of the sounds here that intrigues
Chris, and during the climb gradually he begins to understand something of the
deeper more spiritual connection with the earth which is so intrinsic to the
Sami culture.
For Andé the mountain soundscape and his relationship to the
wolves which were once so prevalent here, inspires a joik, a Sami chant, which
he performs at the peak of their climb.
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