Nils-Aslak Valkeapää
Nils-Aslak Valkeapää, also known as Áillohaš, was a Finnish Sámi writer, musician and artist who lived from 1943 to 2001. He is one of the most well-known figures in Sámi culture and is best known for his joiks (traditional Sámi songs) and his poetry.
He was born on March 23, 1943, in Enontekiö, Finland, into a nomadic Sámi reindeer-herding family. His father was Finnish Sámi and his mother was Norwegian Sámi. Northern Sámi was his first language, but he did not learn to write it well until he was an adult. He studied at Kemijärvi Teachers’ Training College but never worked as a teacher.
Valkeapää first gained attention as a joik performer. He released his debut album Joikuja in 1968. In 1973 he joined a musicians’ retreat and, inspired by Dvořák’s music and African-American spirituals, he helped create fusion joik, blending traditional singing with jazz. This led to the jazz-joik project Juoigansinfonija. In 1978 he released Sámiid eatnan duoddariid, a jazz-joik recording. His experimental style caused some controversy in Finland, where some groups viewed joik as inappropriate to mix with other styles. He defended his approach, saying that trying to “preserve” traditional culture could mean treating it as a dead thing. He released thirteen records between 1968 and 1994. The piece Goase Dušše (The Bird Symphony), made from natural sounds of Sápmi, won a special prize at Prix Italia in 1993. He also wrote the music for the 1987 film Ofelaš (The Path finder) and performed its theme; parts of it were later sampled by Mike Oldfield. He performed at the opening ceremony of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.
Valkeapää’s first book, Terveisiä Lapista (Greetings from Lapland), appeared in 1971. It was written in Finnish and criticized boarding schools and land policies affecting Sámi people. His poetry in Northern Sámi began with Giđa ijat čuovgadat (Spring Nights So Bright) in 1974. From 1974 to 2001 he published nine poetry books in Northern Sámi. Only two were translated into Finnish: his debut and Beaivi, Áhcázan (The Sun, My Father) in 1988, for which he received the Nordic Council Literature Prize in 1991. He also wrote a Noh play that was performed in Japan in 1995. He edited the magazine Aiti in 1981 and helped found the publishing house DAT in 1984 to publish Sámi works. In addition to writing, he was a photographer and painter; many of his drawings and paintings feature Sámi mythological beings, birds, people and reindeer. He included his art in several of his poetry books and designed covers for books by other Sámi writers. Some of his art is on display at the Kautokeino Museum.
Valkeapää played a major role in Sámi rights work and connected Sámi issues to the broader Indigenous rights movement. He attended the 1975 founding meeting of the World Council of Indigenous Peoples and later served as cultural coordinator for the WCIP. He helped organize Davvi Šuvva, the world’s first Sámi cultural festival, in 1979. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Oulu and the University of Lapland.
In 1996 he was badly injured in a car accident and moved to Skibotn, building a traditional house there. He became a Norwegian citizen in 2001. He died on November 26, 2001, in Espoo, Finland, while returning from a poetry event in Japan. He is buried in Tromsø.
Valkeapää’s legacy lives on. In 2022 his joik Sámiid eatnan duoddariid was chosen as the national joik of the Sámi people. The Lásságámmi Foundation was created in 2004 to preserve his legacy and use his Skibotn home as a place for researchers and artists. After his death, two of his poems appeared on the debut album of his godson Niko Valkeapää. He was bisexual, but he kept this hidden during his life.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 16:24 (CET).