I loved visiting Siberia. It's wonderfully cold in the winter - just my sort of thing!

And this is Anton.

Anton is seven years old. He is one of a tribal people called the Chukchee. These people are tough. They have to be as the winters are bitterly cold (as I said, lovely!). They depend on big herds of reindeer (caribou in North America) for their food and clothing.

They even - like Santa Claus - use them for transport.

(I didn't see Rudolph though.) Anton and his friends, like Esimba, learn how to survive by copying the elders of the tribe. One thing they have to learn is how to use a lasso to catch the reindeer.

Learning to use a lasso.

Anton lives in sort of sturdy tent called a uranga made of wooden poles, tied together and covered with reindeer skins. Because the Chukchee are nomadic - they have to follow the reindeer herds as they roam across the tundra - the uranga is deisgned to be easily taken down and packed onto a sledge (called a nart).

Here's Anton pretending to be a reindeer!.

Anton's Chukchee ancestors have lived for thousands of years with the reindeer herds on the Siberian tundra. The metal tin was found on their lands over 60 years ago so big mines started up and, like the Yanomami in Brazil with the goldminers, this meant changes. The mines are closed now but Anton's people have an uncertain future. Much depends on what Anton and his friends choose to do. Will they stay with the reindeer? Or will they want a life with cars and shops like most other people? Which would you choose?

Will Anton, Esimba, Guiomar and many other tribal peoples around the world be able to survive in the modern industrial world humans have made for themselves?

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