Editing Finnmark (section)

=== Sami ===
{{Main|Sami history}}

The Sami are the indigenous people of Finnmark, but Norwegians have lived for hundreds of years on the islands' outer parts, where they made up the majority. The [[Sami people]] still constitute the majority in Finnmark's interior parts, while the fjord areas have been ethnically mixed for a long time. This essentially holds true today.

The Sami were for years victims of the [[Norwegianization]] policy, which in essence was an attempt by the government to make them "true Norwegians" and forget about their Sami way of life and religion, which was seen as inferior. As a result, the Sami living at the coast and in the fjords gradually lost much of their culture and often felt ashamed by their Sami inheritance. The Sami in the interior managed to preserve more of their culture. In the 1970s, instruction of the [[Sami language]] started in schools, and a new sense of consciousness started to grow among the Sami; today most are proud of their background and culture.

In the midst of this awakening (1979), Norway's government decided to build a [[dam]] in Alta to produce [[hydropower]], provoking multiple Sami and [[environmentalist]]s to demonstrations and civil disobedience—[[Alta conflict|Alta Conflict]]. In the end, the dam was built on a much smaller scale than originally intended and the Sami culture was on the government's agenda. The [[Sámi Parliament of Norway|Sami parliament]] (''Sámediggi'') was opened in Karasjok in 1989.