About Me
Fred Ivar Utsi Klemetsen is an award-winning Norwegian Photographer working in Norway as a Photojournalist and artist. He has had serval exhibitions in the US.
Fred has documented the life of the Sami people who live close to nature since the 1990s until today.

 The Sami are the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia. Their language and culture is unique to the region. In Norway, the Sami numbers about 45,000 people. There are two main types of Sami – the nomadic people and the sea people. My mother belongs to a family of nomadic Sami who have herded reindeers on the northern mountain plains for centuries. My father belongs to the sea Sami, who lived off farming and fisheries. 

The nomadic Sami have traditionally moved throughout the region with their reindeer herds. They follow the reindeers across wide expanses of land in northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. The reindeer has been essential to the survival of the Sami, who have lived in northern Scandinavia for thousands of years. Their culture is one of hardship, driven by the extreme survival skills needed to get through the long grueling winters on the arctic plains, where the temperature can dip below –50 degrees Fahrenheit. The reindeer has been absolutely essential to their existence, providing the Sami with food, clothing, shelter and tools.

 Today, some are still herding reindeers. But many have moved to different parts of the country, or lead “ordinary” modern lives. As they abandon their traditional way of life, the Sami culture is also rapidly disappearing.

 This is the subject of this project, which consists of photographs shot between 1990 and the present. As with many indigenous cultures, the increasingly aggressive onset of modernity and technology quickly supplants the old way of life. Therefore, I want to document this culture before it is completely gone.
Many of the reindeer herders are worried about the future. Several encourage their children to go have an education and another job at the bottom.
The winter of 2020 and 2022 has been very hard for many of the reindeer owners. In late autumn and early winter the there was mild weather and rain. Days after it froze again and a thick layer of ice at the bottom towards the ground, which remained. In large areas, the animals were unable to dig down for food. This resulted in feeding the animals. A rather absurd situation when there are hundreds and thousands to be fed. Due to the grazing crisis last winter, many used trucks to transport the animals to summer pasture.
"It must be the climate that is now changing", says Mathis Somby.
