RUNNING WITH REINDEER: Encounters in Russian Lapland

Wanting to explore Europe's last wilderness, Took, an art historian and museum curator, made numerous trips during the 1990s to the far northwest corner of the Russian Federation and evocatively recounts his journey. Traveling alone, he camped, stayed in deplorable hotels and lived with the few people in Russian Lapland who would invite a stranger into their homes. First he went to the interior to find the Saami, the indigenous people who have herded reindeer for thousands of years in a region that is still rich with wildlife. Then, ignoring warnings that the area was too dangerous, he went to the northern coast, a restricted military zone. Although he was not always successful at evading the patrols and border guards, he managed to see some of the decaying nuclear-powered submarines and nuclear reactors that are rotting along the grim coast of the Barents Sea. He also visited Monchegorsk, home to nickel-processing plants that have polluted thousands of square kilometers as far away as Finland, Sweden and Norway, and went on an expedition with an organization doing research on Soviet forced labor camps. His wide-ranging book encompasses thousands of years of Russian Lapland's history, from the time when the Saami lived in harmony with nature to today, when a region whose traditional ways were devastated by Soviet collectivism is now succumbing to the economic problems that beset modern Russia. This is a fascinating, albeit bleak, portrait of a largely unknown part of the world. Photos not seen by PW. (Dec.)