Despite decades of advocacy in the Nordic region, indigenous vocal musics remain almost entirely absent from compulsory music education in Sweden and Norway. The joiking traditions of the Sámi people are considered to be Europe’s oldest living vocal music practices but are endangered by geographical isolation and historical suppression and marginalization by majority cultures. The Singing Maps project is a four-year (2025-2029) research initiative financed by the Research Council of Norway that aims to strengthen and promote the traditional musical heritage of the Sámi people through music education and online community development, with a focus on joiking. Data collection includes applied ethnographic and artistic research methods, working in collaboration with Sámi musicians and educators to investigate the experience of becoming a tradition bearer within this unique musical practice. By investigating such issues as cultural sustainability, indigenous resilience, heritage ownership and musical identity, the project explores how joiking can be shared and passed down through modern educational platforms and online learning communities. In this presentation, study leaders will present the study’s research design and discuss preliminary results from the project’s main empirical data collection field work (2025-2026). This phase of the project seeks to build knowledge about Sámi traditional learning practices across four generations of joikers covering the Sápmi region in Norway, Finland, and Sweden. Data consists of interviews and field recordings with twelve Sámi tradition bearers. Selection criteria for the chosen sample of tradition bearers will be presented. The role of tradition bearer within the Sámi context will be examined and questions of sustainable education from a Sámi perspective will be developed.