Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
banned from all Norwegian eateries, tenacious puffers may derive more than cold comfort
from this dark, smoky environment where a fire constantly burns.
Shopping
Knivsmed Strømeng
SAMI KNIFE MAKER
( 78 46 71 05; Badjenjárga; Mon-Fri)
This shop calls on five generations of local
experiencetocreateoriginalhandmadeSamiknivesforeverythingfromoutdoortokitchen
use.
Information
The
tourist office ( 78 46 88 00;
www.sapmi.no
;
9am-7pm Jun-mid-Aug,
9am-4pm Mon-Fri rest of year)
is in Sápmi Park, near the junction of the E6 and the
Rv92. It will change money if you're stuck with euros after crossing the border from Fin-
land.
Getting There & Away
Twice-daily buses (except Saturday) connect Karasjok with Alta (Nkr405, 4¾ hours) and
Hammerfest (Nkr370, 4¼ hours). There's a service to Kirkenes (Nkr529, 5 hours) four
times weekly.
A daily Finnish Lapin Linjat bus runs to Rovaniemi (Nkr610, eight hours) via Ivalo
(Nkr240, 3½ hours), in Finland.
Kautokeino
POP 2950
While Karasjok has made concessions to Norwegian culture, Kautokeino, the traditional
winter base of the reindeer Sami (as opposed to their coastal kin), remains more emphat-
ically Sami; some 85% of the townspeople have Sami as their first language and you may
see a few nontourist-industry locals in traditional costume. The
kommune,
or municipality,
is Norway's largest, covering nearly 10,000 sq km. That's an awful lot of forest and lake.
The town is, frankly, dull in summer since so many of its people are up and away with the
reindeer in their warm-weather pastures (in winter, by contrast, around 100,000 reindeer
