This For All You Preppers Who Think Your Living Off The Grid

YouTube ^ | 2/2021 | Nomad Architecture

[OneVike]

This is a video of a family of reindeer herders setting up their lodging for a short stay before they have to head out again. They are on the move every four days or so, and by now they got this down to a science, and everyone works together. These families are so far off the grid they live in Siberia. I'm offer 17 screen shots from the video for those who would rather not spend the 32 minutes watching the whole video, however, your missing a treat if you don't.

I often read about preppers who are doing their best to live off the grid, but after watching this video you guys ain't got nothing on these people. They are so far off the grid, the only modern convenience they got is a snowmobile to pull their long train off sleds from one camping spot to another as they herd their reindeer. It's an amazing thing to watch, and after I finished I couldn't help to think how spoiled we are here in America. Hell, even American peppers are spoiled compared to these people. Below is some information from the producer of the video that I lifted from the youtube video, and the 16 more screen shots follow.

The Nenet reindeer herders need to move their tent every few days throughout most of the year. Every time they migrate they must pack the whole tent away, drag it across the tundra on sledges, and erect it again in a fresh place, sometimes in temperatures of minus thirty degrees. Survival depends on working together as a team.

After staying in the wooded taiga for two months they start to migrate north following the ancient paths of migrating reindeer (caribou). In four months they will travel up to 1200km and must pack and move every three to five days to keep up with their herd. They must reach their summer quarters before the snows melt and flood great rivers with icy waters too cold and deep for the calves, born along the way, to cross.

Behind the tent an invisible line extends out into the tundra. It is called the sawei line, and a woman cannot cross it. It will bring bad luck to the tent. It was hard for them to explain exactly why, it is much stronger than a superstition and is connected to the spirit pole that stands at the back of the tent. This pole is sacred and a woman cannot cross underneath it either, and only a shaman may sit in this holy place. The origins of this are a little lost, there may be practical reasons, for example the back of the tent is traditionally where the men work, often together, so they have to be able to move about freely, but there are often two families in a single tent, so maybe one day the women just agreed territories to stop tripping over each other. Maybe it has such a mundane origin, or maybe there are real spirits that come up to the tent from behind and would bring harm to any women caught in the wrong place. If several tents pitch together, their lines must not cross either, so they tend to camp in a straight line to avoid this.

In answer to the many questions - on personal hygiene, everyone washes using a bowl of soap and hot water, just like most of our grandparents did before everyone had pipes and taps. There is no toilet in the tent as some have suggested, they find a spot a few hundred metres away. They are not pitching on a lake but a small mound where the snow blows a little thinner, Gas companies have been in the area and gave away snowmobiles as part of land access negotiations. Also sometimes there are competitions with them as prizes, sometimes they sell a load of reindeer and buy one. Most families now have at least one but the reindeer are still used a lot. Yes, they use a sled to go to town, or trading posts to buy groceries.

I wanted to catch the entire process, but have edited it down a little from the 40-45 minutes it takes to get from the open snows to a warm cosy home

[LadyDoc]

Love the purple polyester outfit on the kid. And the iron pots.

Presumably they order stuff from amazon on their cellphones.

[daniel1212]

Ahh--someone is carrying on the proud FR tradition of not actually reading the article before commenting.

And at least with this video there an article!

[conservativeimage]

There's hunker down prepping. Then there's avoid capture prepping.

"This is livin!

This is style!

This is elegance by the mile!"

"Oh the posh posh traveling life,

the traveling life for me."

[Openurmind]

“Who wants to live off reindeer meat and milk all year around? I guess they get a treat of wild berries in the summer. Some wild plants too, that they can cook and eat in their reindeer stew/”

But they don’t, they still go to town or trading posts and buy food. So they are still hooked to the system and not completely self sufficient.

[Albion Wilde]

What a great documentary! Thanks for all your hard work in posting this mini-movie for us. Better than a tv show.

[goodnesswins]

Interesting...my grandfather was a sheepherder in NE Montana...till he committed suicide when my Dad was 14...

[Albion Wilde]

Who wants to live off reindeer meat and milk all year around?

Keto. None of them is obese, I notice. Imagine how heavy all the padded fur clothing is. They must stay fit and have good heart health to be able to move around and do all the manual work.

I saw one of them beating the folded-up tent pelts with sticks before unfolding them--I imagine parts of the tents are dampened while they live inside and freeze up while they travel, and must be loosened enough to unfold.

Next time I have to use de-ice spray on my windshield wipers or a butane lighter to unfreeze my car locks after an overnight ice storm, I'll think of them. And I'm only in Maryland. They're in 30 below.

[Albion Wilde]

6 months of the years, they only have to make sure their reindeer are fed.

Seriously? That's when the replacement pelts must be made, tents, stick mats, sledges, ropes, boots and clothing made or repaired, rusted cookware replaced, children educated, and tradeable crafts made, like leather goods, beadwork, stick and feather crafts, shell or stone ware, pottery or woodcarving. The men probably hunt for a change of diet, such as fish, birds or rabbit, and the women do most of the crafts and clothing.

There must be some cash exchanged for the reindeer they herd. Is it a venison and leather crop? Do they sell to pet food manufacturers or glue factories? Is there a market for antler wares? Curious.

[OneVike]

For this of you complaining about my spelling, I'm a better speller and writer than this post attests to

However, I had been up since 5:00 am yesterday morning working on a book I'm writing that that has a deadline in two weeks for me to get it to the publisher.

After I posted it I realized the many mistakes. However, it was so late I just wanted to post the damn thing. LOL

I almost changed my mind about posting it, and actually considered leaving it as just another post I lost interest in. Mainly because my brain was already tired, and I wanted to go to bed, but instead I decided to give my fellow freepers something to distract from all the politics and anger, so I continued.

By the time I finished taking the screen shots and editing them to work, which I actually edited over 30 of them, and then uploading them to a hosting site, creating the HTML to give the look I wanted for the post, it was after 11:00 pm and I was tired.

By then I just wanted to hit post and go to bed.

Sorry for the lame mistakes, but I guess I could have done what everyone else does and just post a URL link with a short blurb, but I decided to take the time and make it worthwhile for those who would not go to the video.

As it is, there are those who made their usual stupid comments because they, not only refused to go watch the video but, did not even read the information I posted about the video from the man who uploaded it.

While I wish I would have spent 20 minutes more editing the post, it is what it is.

God Bless, Chuck N (OV)

Back to my book

[Albion Wilde]

All I said is that they have more free time. I showed an article that backs that point up.

The article was about the men's work, not the women's, which never ends.

[lee martell]

Thank you for posting the story of this family. Those kids will be unafraid of hard work and weatherproofed when they grow up.

[OneVike]

There must be some cash exchanged for the reindeer they herd. Is it a venison and leather crop? Do they sell to pet food manufacturers or glue factories? Is there a market for antler wares? Curious.

Your question is answered somewhat in the post,

In answer to the many questions - on personal hygiene, everyone washes using a bowl of soap and hot water, just like most of our grandparents did before everyone had pipes and taps. There is no toilet in the tent as some have suggested, they find a spot a few hundred metres away. They are not pitching on a lake but a small mound where the snow blows a little thinner, Gas companies have been in the area and gave away snowmobiles as part of land access negotiations.

Also sometimes there are competitions with them as prizes, sometimes they sell a load of reindeer and buy one. Most families now have at least one but the reindeer are still used a lot. Yes, they use a sled to go to town, or trading posts to buy groceries.

[Albion Wilde]

You did great. Ignore the armchair critics.

[ShadowAce]

LOL! No worries. Thought it amusing.

[dennisw]

“But they don’t, they still go to town or trading posts and buy food. So they are still hooked to the system and not completely self sufficient.”

These Siberians are not ye classic nomadic raiders. But nomadic raiders do have to eat some plant foods. This is when they raid the sedentary farmers. Or peacefully trade with the towns folk for food that is not meat, milk, cheese from their herds.

What you say is true. The Mongolians even freeze dry some Yak cheeses. Into chips to eat during winter. Those chips look very hard on the teeth. Photos are on the internet/

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Mongolian++dry++cheese&FORM=HDRSC3

[dennisw]

“You did great. Ignore the armchair critics.”

Ignore the pygmies and Lilliputians. Freepers are the premier skeptics of the internet. And with Elon now owning twitter, they will soon infest that.

[stevio]

We’re spoiled.

[goodnesswins]

Thx...I pretty much ignore spelling mistakes for online postings...we all can have fat fingers or spell check issues...and I have better things to complain about..good luck on your book

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

OneVike :" ..They are on the move every four days or so, and by now they got this down to a science, and everyone works together.
These families are so far off the grid they live in Siberia "

These folk are tribal oriented for basic survival;
they have learned to adapt to their environment to overcome adversity in a primitive culture with limited resources.
They are not "preppers",.. they are true 'survivalists' !
God Bless Them !
We can still learn from them, none the less !

[OneVike]

Who wants to live off reindeer meat and milk all year around? I guess they get a treat of wild berries in the summer. Some wild plants too, that they can cook and eat in their reindeer stew/

I remember having stew my grandmother cooked when we visited her in the early "60"s. I was like 6 or 7 at the time. My ancestors were homesteaders in Everson MT. Anyway, the stew was made with elk meat my grandfather shot in Yellowstone, and there were wild berries in the stew my grandmother picked while they were camping down there. We showed up a few days after they returned from their hunting trip, so we were blessed with some of the best tasting stew I ever ate. To this day I remember how good it was.

Back in the old day, they knew how to cook with very limited supplies, and I'm guessing the stew these people in Siberia cooked was as good if not better than my grandmothers. Real difficult to beat grandmothers recipes, and I bet these women in the video were probably use tired and tested recipes created over thousands of years.

Even in the early 1900's where Americans were homesteading, things were easier for our ancestors than it looks like it is for the Siberian Nenet reindeer herders of today. Yet, they food my ancestor ate was probably similar to what the Nenet's eat today.

Below is a pic of my ancestors original homestead home. My grandmother would have been like 10 or eleven at the time, because the pic was taken sometime in 1910. Not sure if it was in the 1909 - 1910 Winter, or later in the 1910 - 1911 Winter. I do know my grandmother was born in 1900. She always told me, "I'm as old as there are years in this century".

This next picture is my grandparents working in the field harvesting their crop in 1913.

Yet, even back then there were some modern day conveniences my ancestors were blessed to enjoy. Kind of like the snowmobile the Siberian families have. In the image below my grandparents were guests along for a ride during a parade. What occasion the parade was for I am clueless. As I said, they were invited to ride along since they themselves did not yet own a car of their own.

In image below was taken 13 years later in 1926, when they finally owned a car. From what I understand, the picture was taken while they were at a picnic after church.