| Summary: | Abstract The land use rights of the Sami were based on collectively agreed immemorial rights of use. Land areas were inherited, bought and sold, fishing waters were shared between families. Disputes about land areas were settled at the so-called Sami court. Only rarely did the actual court system settle disputes between the residents on Inari and Utsjoki. In the mid-16th century, the government did not have much control, but their influence increased gradually. The border closing of 1852 was the final act that established government control over the region. It closed the border between Norway and Finland. The first settlements were established in Inari as early as the 16th century. The first settlement was built in Utsjoki in 1831. The Sami tried to establish their rights of ownership and use for the land areas they had used for ages by establishing fishing settlements. They clearly derived from the old form of dwelling and land use. Fishing settlements were only established in Finnish Lapland in the 1840s and 1850s in Inari and Utsjoki. However, the solution was only temporary. The government took administrative actions to increase the pace of settlement. One of these actions was the organisation reform of 1858, which resulted in the authorities starting regional reviews. At the same time, land estates were transferred closer to winter dwellings. The extensive areas which the Sami had rights to use according to the seasons were limited. The term “settlement” is often thought to refer to new estates built on the crown’s land. However, this was not the case in Inari and Utsjoki. There the Sami found new estates on the land areas they had inherited. The imperial decree of 1866 gave the Forestry Board control of Inari’s and Utsjoki’s forests. The area was placed temporarily under the Forestry Board’s control. The separation of the surplus land of the state was carried out in Inari in 1902–1906. The government was free to sell timber, whereas similar rights to sell timber were not issued to the landowners. After the ...
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