life rattle Radio show no. 1142

Aired on CKLN FM 88.1 march 6, 2011

Hosted by Victoria Martinez

Featuring

Mervi Maarit Salo reading:

"Áhkka The Great Mother"
"Guovža The Bear"
"Kraja The Place One Longs For"

tonight's Show

Mervi Marrit Salo, a Toronto artist, musician, writer and educator, has worked in arts education at local, provincial and international levels. As a multidisciplinary artist, she currently has artwork in one national and one US touring exhibition. As a musician, she plays several instruments and sings in a local choir—Vox Finlandiae. As a writer, she is the author and editor of many arts resources.

Born in Finland, Maarit Salo is of mixed European and Sámi ancestry. She balances her contemporary urban life with escapes to northern wilderness—in Canada and abroad.

In these stories Mervi explores the history and themes of the Sámi people: Arctic aboriginal peoples whose traditional lands are Sápmi (Lapland) across arctic and sub-arctic Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia.
The narrative format of these stories, a nod to indigenous storytelling as a method to transmit knowledge to younger generations, emerges as an alternative history to that found in books – if the Saami are mentioned in books at all that is...