Hut foundations / "Stalo ground"
The path leads upwards to large, lawn-like expanses on a plateau where the ground is almost completely flat. From here you can see to the west the remains of a great glacier up on Olfjället mountain, called Ulevuole by the Sami. This mountain provided the setting of a well-known Sami jojk (= chant), by Nils Matias Andersson entitled “The reindeer herd of Ulevuole”. The following is an English translation of the chant.
”For sure they thought.
Oulavuolie’s handsome reindeer are better.
Oulavuolie’s high-grown reindeer are better
Look at them
The countless dappled, dappled
Reindeer with their noses dotted white
The grey-white, snow-white.
Reindeer with spiky antlers forward thrust
Reindeer with antlers waving high.
With antlers askew
With antlers waving high
See them on the glacier, on the glacier
The glacier, the glacier
Oulavuolie’s glacier
Where perils lurk
Many high-grown reindeer
Mine they are
On Oulavuolie’s glacier
No, not mine alone they are
Vast herds it has imbibed
Imbibed and swallowed
In its great crevasse
Oulavuolie’s great crevasse
Oulavuolie’s great crevasse
Imbibed and swallowed down and down
Full many a reindeer fair.”
Hut foundations / ”Stalo ground”
A so-called Stalo ground was excavated next to the path in 1978. It was unusually large, 15 x 13 metres, and oval in shape. No hearth was discovered in the middle of the site and no finds
G. THE TÄNGVATTNET VALLEY
68 THE MOUNTAIN GUIDE – YOUR GUIDE TO THE TÄRNAFJÄLLEN MOUNTAINS
were unearthed. Therefore there is nothing to date the site. Unfortunately some smaller sites in the vicinity which probably did have hearths were not investigated. See also p 41 on the Brandsfjället Stalo grounds and theories of designation and origin. About 6 km after the road barrier a small privately-owned building is reached. The building was erected by the military and stands in approximately the same place as the frontier post did during the Second World War. Insulators for an old telephone line from those days can still be seen screwed into mountain birches along the road.