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Jokkmokks Winter Market is one of the oldest market places in Sweden with traditions all the way back to middle ages. Jokkmokks market has a long history with a 400 year old tradition. King Karl IX decreed in 1605 that permanent marketplaces should be established in Lapland. At this time the village Jokkmokk didn’t exist. With permanent market places could the government get more power over the people in the north and it made it easier to collect taxes, hold district court and spread Christianity. When Karl IX decided about the market places we already had established trade routes and systems for trading in the inland of Lapland. Old archaeological findings has shown that there were trading between southwest of Finland over to Tysfjord in Norway already during the Viking Age. Jokkmokk became at this point a centre for trading. At the same time as the market places established all other trading was forbidden in the Sami area of Luleå. Lake Talvatis where the Sami village Jokkmokk had their winter camp became one of the market places.
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