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The indigenous forest Sami of Lapland in northern Sweden were generally semi-sedentary until the early 20th century, moving between a number of seasonal settlements inside household territories. In the 1600s and the early 1700s, the subsistence pattern of the forest Sami seems to have been focused on fishing, and movements between settlements followed the spawning times of fish. During the 18th century, reindeer husbandry for milking and cheese making expanded greatly. Locations suitable for reindeer then became a dominant part of the settlement pattern, whereas fishing sites became less important. 

Although this notion of a shift from a fish-centred to a reindeer-centred subsistence pattern during the 18th century gives a general idea of the development of forest-Sami life in Sweden, it is much simplified. In this paper, resource use in a forest-Sami territory in the late 17th and early 18th centuries is studied in detail, using a number of different sources. A map is created, showing a hypothetical seasonal settlement pattern of an economy based primarily on fishing and hunting but in which small-scale reindeer husbandry also played a significant role. This is a way of approaching a deeper understanding of the dynamics of ancient forest-Sami ways of life and of facilitating discoveries of long-forgotten seasonal settlements.