to live, and even reproduce, for several months at a time. The Sámi lived on fish and reindeer meat, and did not eat wheat or rye. They lived in communities detached from the Norwegians; being only loosely connected to the European trade routes, they fared far better than the Norwegians. Fishing industry Fishing has always been the main livelihood for the many Sámi living permanently in coastal areas. Archeological research shows that the Sámi have lived along the coast and once lived much farther south in the past, and they were also involved in work other than reindeer herding (e.g., fishing, agriculture, iron work). The fishing along the north Norwegian coast, especially in the Lofoten and Vesterålen islands, is quite productive, with a variety of fish; during medieval times, it was a major source of income for both the fishermen and the Norwegian monarchy. With such massive population drops caused by the Black Death, the tax revenues from this industry greatly diminished. Because of the huge profits that could be had from these fisheries, the local authorities offered incentives to the Sámi—faced with their own population pressures—to settle on the newly vacant farms. This started the economic division between the Sea Sámi (sjøsamene), who fished extensively off the coast, and the Mountain Sámi (fjellsamene, innlandssamene), who continued to hunt reindeer and small-game animals. They later herded reindeer. Even as late as the early 18th century, there were many Sámi who were still settling on these farms left abandoned from the 1350s. After many years of continuous migration, these Sea Sámi became far more numerous than the reindeer-herding mountain Sámi, who today only make up 10% of all Sámi. In contemporary times, there are also ongoing consultations between the Government of Norway and the Sámi Parliament regarding the right of the coastal Sámi to fish in the seas on the basis of historical use and international law. State regulation of sea fisheries underwent drastic change in the late 1980s. The regulation linked quotas to vessels and not to fishers. These newly calculated quotas were distributed free of charge to larger vessels on the basis of the amount of the catch in previous years, resulting in small vessels in Sámi districts falling outside the new quota system to a large degree. Mountain Sámi As the Sea Sámi settled along Norway's fjords and inland waterways, pursuing a combination of farming, cattle raising, trapping