Three peoples

• Sámi settlements date back at least 2000 years. In the 17th century, the original hunter-gatherer culture was in decline. Most Sámi people settled in permanent communities – on the coast, in the fjords and along the rivers. They had cattle and hunted and fished (coastal and river Sámi). A small proportion of the Sámi specialised in semi-domesticated reindeer husbandry (Sámi reindeer herders), an important element which sometimes involved a barter relationship with permanent settlers.
• Norwegians were already hunting and fishing in the north of the country during the Viking Period, and taxing – in reality plundering – the Sámi people. It is thought that at the time, Malangen in Troms was the northern boundary of Norwegian settlements. The precise timing of Norwegian settlements along the coast in Finnmark is not known. Norwegian settlers are not confirmed by reliable sources until the 14th century.
• Kvens are descendants of people who migrated to Northern Norway from the Torne River Valley, an area which until 1809 was Swedish; between 1806 and 1917 was shared between Sweden and Russia; and which today is shared between Sweden and Finland. The immigration began in the 16th century and became particularly significant in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Kvens were skilful farmers, fishermen and blacksmiths. Famine in Finland in the 1860s prompted considerable migration to eastern Finnmark. 

Sámi, Kven and Norwegian peoples are nevertheless not three completely separate population groups, and inter-marriage has not been uncommon. One group which was socially and culturally separate, consisted of clergymen and other senior civil servants, who were mostly from the southern part of Norway.