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The Guardian: Folk album of the month August 2025

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Only twice in my life have I seen wild reindeer. The first time was a massive herd, likely several hundred animals. They ran close together, as one, with an intense focus, moving rapidly and blending almost seamlessly with the gray-brown landscape around them near Dyranut on the Hardangervidda plateau. I was seven years old then. Many years later, I saw them once more, again by chance, while traveling east one spring day. This, even though I grew up in the mountains, at Maurset in Eidfjord municipality, near the foot of the vast plateau where I’ve wandered for years in every direction. The same plateau where reindeers have wandered for thousands of years. They’ve never been far away, yet always unattainable and elusive. They are wary of humans—and rightly so.

 

They dig with their hooves all winter long, searching for food beneath the snow. They are in perpetual motion, always migrating. When the winter winds settle over the landscape, sometimes for days on end, the reindeer lie down and wait in silence. They can stay there, as the wind lashes their muzzles and the snow whirls around them, enduring temperatures as low as minus forty degrees in their thick, perfectly adapted coats. In spring, they give birth to calves on the firm snow. An hour or two later, the calves rise to their feet and follow their mothers. In summer, they flee from swarms of mosquitoes while grazing on lush birch shoots, lichens, and mushrooms. In autumn, they flee from hunters, only to gather again during the mating season before the cows and bulls again part ways. Then they dig through yet another winter for nourishment hidden beneath the white expanse. They communicate with grunts and clicking sounds from their hooves, whether walking on wet marshes or hard ice. They live in herds, mastering life in this seemingly desolate landscape of stone, glaciers, snow, rivers, heather, and moraines. This is where they belong.

 

Mirra is a continuation of my previous work, Hárr (2022), again with the perspective of ecosophy as its guiding principle, and this time, the reindeer take center stage. The word «mirra» is an old, extinct dialect term from Hardanger, likely describing the way reindeer move together, often in repeated circles to stay warm or keep predators at bay. It may also have been used to describe how the landscape seemed to "teem" with reindeer. The work follows parts of the wild reindeer's yearly rituals, their distinctive sounds, and their behaviors. They are extraordinary, beautiful creatures. They are also endangered—by humans, above all, who steadily encroach on their habitat, little by little, year by year. If we’re not careful, the wild reindeer on Hardangervidda might disappear forever.

 

Benedicte Maurseth, 2025.