Sámi culture fills the open-sky dance floor in a nightless Inari night

On the shore of Finland’s third-largest lake, the quiet village of Inari becomes, for two days each year, an open-sky dance floor.

Ijahis idja – “nightless night” in Sámi – has celebrated the music of the Indigenous peoples of Sápmi since 2004. It remains the only Sámi music festival in Finland. Dozens of artists, an outdoor stage, a handicraft market and even a lasso-throwing competition make it the place to be every August.

The festival draws people from neighboring villages as well as from Norway, Sweden and beyond. Many travelers also seize the chance to party after a day of hiking in the fjells. Once again, the program highlighted the vibrancy of the Sámi music scene: from traditional yoik to pop or rap, Sámi artists offered a broad and modern vision of their art.

Good music, good company, and everyone having the time of their life might make this seem like just another summer festival. Yet here, it is much more: the stage is not only for performing but for delivering strong messages to an audience that knows exactly what they are here for.

More than a festival: a cultural and political statement

The location itself sends a message. The main stage stands in front of Sajos, home to the Sámi Parliament of Finland and the Sámi Cultural Centre.

Many artists and much of the audience, from kids to elders, wear traditional dress, setting the tone from the first moment. You immediately feel you’ve entered another territory.

 The voice of a new generation

For the artist Mihkku Laiti, 23, this night was special: his first full set at Ijahis Idja, the festival he has known since childhood – his mother is a yoiker and even used to organize it.

Raised in Utsjoki, a remote village on the Norwegian border, he performs as Yungmiqu. A former Finland’s Got Talent contestant, he has grown into a recognized rap artist performing across the Nordics and beyond.

While he sometimes sings in Finnish, he mainly uses his mother tongue, Northern Sámi, to express what it means to be Sámi today: his personal feelings, his worldview, and the stereotypes surrounding his people.

The perfect blend of music and activism

At 27, Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen embodies another face of Sámi artistry. Raised in Tana, Norway, she grew up between the yoiking tradition of her family and pop influences, listening to the famous Sámi singer Mari Boine as well as Justin Bieber. Though she once dreamed of becoming a drama actress, a deep depression in high school pushed her to write music.

She combines pop and yoik “instinctively.” For her, “yoik is more than music, it is a soul language. To be yoiked is a great compliment”.

On stage, she blends universal themes like love, fear, hope with powerful messages. Music is the way she processes anger. “Some of these songs were written on barricades while defending Sámi rights,” she told the audience. Activism is not a choice for her, but something she feels deeply, rooted in centuries of oppression and in today’s struggles for land and traditional livelihoods.

Off stage, she campaigns against projects like the wind farm in the Fosen region and currently against a mining company in Repparfjord. Now performing as a solo artist, her latest album, Vaara (“Blood”), asks who has blood on their hands, targeting the Norwegian government in several songs.

For Ella Marie, music is also a way to nurture pride: “Pride is the antidote to hate.” She wants Sámi people to feel proud of who they are and where they come from.

Music as a universal language

“Music is a universal language, but you have to open your heart to receive it.” For Ella Marie, this universal language also serves to preserve her own.

As a child, she discovered that all Sámi languages were listed by UNESCO as threatened, and decided to dedicate her life to protecting Northern Sámi. “Our language is connected to the land. When I yoik, I am protecting the language.”

As she puts it: being Indigenous means loving the land, a bond she shares more closely with other Indigenous peoples worldwide than with people in Oslo, where she now lives.

A vibrant Arctic

Events like Ijahis Idja are more than concerts: they sustain Sámi pride, language, and activism. For a foreigner, attending feels like a privilege. A reminder that the European Arctic is more than stunning landscapes, it is also a vibrant, modern place where culture is deeply rooted, alive and serves as an inspiration for a better world.

A winter trip prompted Soraya Lahlou to leave France and relocate to the remote area of Lake Inari in Northern Finland. With a background in corporate strategy, marketing and communications, she is contributing to the Arctic’s sustainable development and showcasing its potential on the global stage.