About Sámi National Day
At the Sámi Council’s fifteenth conference in Helsinki in 1992, it was decided that the Sámi’s joint national day and celebrations should take place annually on 6 February. This is a significant date, representing the first Sámi national meeting held in Trondheim, Norway, on 6 February 1917 – a meeting that brought together more than a hundred attendees from Norway and Sweden. For the first time, North and South Sámi were able to come together and discuss their most important common issues.
The Sámi national anthem, Sámi soga lávlla, was written in 1906 by Isak Saba and has been set to music by Arne Sörlie. The Sámi flag was approved on 15 August 1986 at the Nordic Sámi Conference in the Swedish city of Åre. The flag was designed by Norway’s Astrid Båhl, who incorporated the colours of the Sámi costume. The circle symbolises the sun and the moon, with the sun ring in red and the moon ring in blue.
Sámi culture at Skansen
Sámi National Day has been celebrated at Skansen since 2003 in partnership with the Stockholm Sámi Association.
