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Vice Blog

STOCKHOLM - JOKKMOKK SHOPPING

I just went to the Arctic Circle to check out the annual Jokkmokk Winter Market. It's a 400-year-old trade fair for the reindeer-herding indigenous Sami people, whose territory stretches across the tops of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The market boasts a huge assortment of pelts and meats and drunks and homemade knives, the same as it has for centuries, but I only had one item on my wishlist: a coat made of pure white polar bear fur…

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Jokkmokk's the kind of town where the gas station sells knives with nine-inch blades and the local coffee shop has a gun mounted above the doorway to the kitchen. The whole place is like a weird Wild West version of Santa's Village. Want to pet a reindeer in the morning? Sure! Want to watch it race other reindeers in the afternoon? No problem. Feel like eating it in a kebab for dinner? Why not? Need a comfy reindeer pelt to sleep in at night? You got it!

Reindeer tastes like a gamier, slightly tangier venison. It's also a gateway mammal; seconds after my first bite I was already onto peppered elk salami, which is shockingly tasty, and elk salami with garlic, which is even better.

While the elk meat digested, we checked out raccoon tails, fox tails, fox hats, fox gloves, stuffed foxes, stuffed birds, wolf pelts, reindeer pelts, bear pelts, seal pelts, pelts of undetermined origin, sealskin gloves, mounted rabbits, elk antlers, reindeer antlers, bear antlers and whole minks. Then we came across the tent selling bear salami.

Bear hunting has a long history among Swedes and northern native peoples alike. Some say the original Norse used to consider it a rite of passage for a young man to take one down with just his knife.

The meat is slightly sweet and takes some getting used to. I later found out that eating any amount of the stuff can cause an infection of parasitic worms that attack the central nervous system and infest the heart.

Although the market has been known to attract thousands of out-of-town visitors but everybody enjoying the raucous nightlife seemed to be from Jokkmokk. I'd argue that the Winter Market ranks as one of the most dangerous places I’ve ever drank shitty beer in, if only because of the sheer cold and startling popularity of Men at Work’s "Land Down Under" amongst the boozy mob, who became extremely pushy as the night lurched on.

Towards the end of my last night in the town, after pestering many drunken merchants, I finally found out about the polar bear jacket. "You can’t find polar bear jackets; it’s illegal to shoot them… but say you could [this part was drawn out in a "hint hint" sort of way]--it’d cost about 50,000 crowns." Next year I'll know to order ahead.

NEIL H. DEMPSEY