Lofoten

“ Here a cairn was built, and I photographed an exceedingly tame ptarmigan in the foreground against an excessively savage-looking peak in the background named Rulten. We were at a height of about 3000 feet. Rulten, from where we were, looked hopelessly inaccessible; but Higraf Tind, the second highest peak in Lofoten, when examined through a glass, promised not only a fine climb, but also success.
One of the great charms of climbing in Lofoten is that to hurry is unnecessary, for it is daylight through all the twenty-four hours: a night out on the mountains in darkness is impossible. ”

“ All through the winter they had been kept at grown-up work, cutting peat and carrying wood; why should they be left now to fool about with the inshore fishing, and bring home nothing better than flounders and coal-fish and silly codlings? The big deep-sea line they were forbidden to touch—that was so—but the Lofoten fishery was at its height, and none of the men would be back till it was over. So the boys had baited up the line on the sly down at the boathouse the day before, and laid it out across the deepest part of the fjord. ”

“ He was really from Trondhjem, whence he had come north, as a destitute boy, in one of those small vessels which are sent from that city to Lofoten, to trade during the fishing season. In his youth he had gone through a great deal, and had even worked for a time in a boat's crew, as a simple fisherman, until he at last got a place as shop-boy with Erlandsen the merchant, whose son-in-law he became.
My father, in middle age, was a handsome man, black-haired and dark-skinned, with sharp, energetic features, and in height rather short than tall. ”

“ This base camp ought to be equipped with a rowing boat of the type called a whale boat, such as can be readily hired from any North Norwegian port. It would be well to have one or two able-bodied Norwegian sailors to man the boat and help drag the sledges, and no difficulty would be experienced in finding in or about the Lofoten Islands suitable men, skilful also in going on ski. Our experience was that young unmarried men were to be preferred. ”

“ Although both are inside the Arctic Circle, the influence of the Atlantic Ocean with its warm-water currents coming all the way from the tropics (Chart 13) protects the Lofoten Islands from the extreme cold that otherwise would come to them; vegetation remains green and cattle are pastured every month in the year. But the ocean retains nearly the same temperature in summer as in winter, and as a result the Islands are too cold to grow trees or many crops. Verkhoyansk is so different that one can scarcely believe that both places are in the same latitude. ”

“ Next to farming the chief industry of Norway is fishing, and in winter all the farmers living on the fjords become fishermen. The great center of the fishing industry is the Lofoten Islands, on the west coast, north of the Arctic circle. Here in winter and early spring assemble upwards of 40,000 fishermen from all of the fjords of western Norway, even from below Bergen. The fishing is chiefly in Vest-fjord, the broad, open body of water between the Lofotens and the mainland, for here the cod swarm in immense numbers. The fishermen scatter ”

“ All our baggage had to be packed for transfer to the Lofoten, in which we were to sail for Horn Sound that evening. At the inn were two Swiss artists and Professor Wiesner of Vienna, come to take observations on the intensity of the light. Presently a tourist steamer arrived and carried the artists away. People were coming and going all the time; it was the culmination of the tourist season.
I have read in the London press that Spitsbergen, nowadays, is “overrun” with tourists. ”

“ The Norwegians nail up the windows and never open them during the winter. At Lofoten, the great fishing center, motor-boats have replaced the old open sailing and row boats. The cabin in the motor-boat is very confined, covered in with watertight deck, heated by the engine, crowded with a dozen workers. ”

“ For the rainfall during several months is excessive, and is quite capable of washing away any superincumbent earth from the sides of the numerous needle-shaped peaks that are to be found on most of the Lofoten Islands; moreover, in the valleys the whole country has been worn down to the bone in prehistoric times by enormous glaciers, and to-day the abnormal summer rainfall and the frosts of the long Arctic nights are continuing the work of denudation. ”

“ Even the iron-framed sons of the North are frequently unable to resist such continuous hardships, and bring home with them the seeds of contagion and death. Malignant fevers have frequently decimated the population of Norway, and their origin may generally be traced to the fishing-grounds. “The Arab and the Persian,” says Leopold von Buch, “build caravanseras for the wayfarers through the desert; the inhabitants of the Alps have founded ‘hospices’ on the summits of the mountain passes; and the Norwegian has erected houses of refuge on Dovrefjeld, but none for the fishermen of Lofoten. ”

“ I learned on this mission great lessons, and the Lord be praised therefor.
VI. HOW I SPENT THE WINTER IN NORDLAND.
I continued my work until late into the fall and early winter, as long as I could find the people at home. When winter opened, most of the able-bodied men voyaged to the fishing districts and worked there throughout the winter. Especially did the fishermen gather in the famous fisheries of Lofoten, where thousands of men and boats assembled each winter while the women, children and the aged remained home on the islands. ”

“ And, half-way between the opening centuries of the Christian era and the period of the Orkney Finnmen, there is a reference which suggests the skin-boat among the Finns of Norway, although it does nothing more than suggest. In the Heimskringla (Saga xiv) it is stated that Sigurd Slembe and his followers passed the winter of 1139 in a cave at Tialdasund, the sound which separates the Lofoten Isles from the Norwegian mainland, and that on that occasion the Finns (or Lapps, as they are indifferently called) constructed two large boats for them. ”

“ JACK OF SJÖHOLM AND THE GAN-FINN
JACK OF SJÖHOLM AND THE GAN1-FINN
In the days of our forefathers, when there was nothing but wretched boats up in Nordland, and folks must needs buy fair winds by the sackful from the Gan-Finn, it was not safe to tack about in the open sea in wintry weather. In those days a fisherman never grew old. It was mostly womenfolk and children, and the lame and halt, who were buried ashore.
Now there was once a boat's crew from Thjöttö in Helgeland, which had put to sea, and worked its way right up to the East Lofotens. ”

“ There is no doubt at all that one can climb infinitely better when fortified by fresh, rather than by tinned, meats. A trout-rod, and the ability to use it efficiently, is often most serviceable anywhere in Norway, and in the Lofotens a few sea-fishing appliances frequently add a welcome change to camp meals. One result of the great cod fishery in the Far North is that excellent French and Spanish wines are procurable at the posting stations at reasonable prices in Arctic Norway. ”

“ At Vardö it is 5° in July. In spring the heat everywhere makes its way from the coast towards the interior of the country (in Finmark from north to south) ; in autumn the cold passes from the interior towards the sea (in Finmark from south to north) . The thermic anomaly is in Norway during the winter months always positive; along the west coast it reaches as much as 36° in January, and off the Lofotens amounts to even 43°, the highest value it anywhere attains on the globe; even in central Norway it is +11° in January. ”

“ Leaving this curious freak of nature, another memorable feature of our northern voyage soon greeted us,—the Loffoden Islands. These form a broken chain one hundred and thirty miles in length. The scenery in their vicinity is perhaps the finest on the Norway coast, and as we watched it with delight, the captain told us of his voyages here in winter, and I now learned, to my astonishment that freight-steamers make their regular trips, all winter long, round the North Cape to Vadso, on the Arctic coast. They encounter fearful storms at times, but rarely any icebergs. ”

“ The only entrance for ships is to leeward of the islands. We went in with a small weather tide, but I could never observe it to flow above three feet while we were there. On the eastermost island there is a round hummock, behind which is a small cove, very smooth, deep, and convenient enough for careening a ship; we here hauled up and fitted our prize, which we named the Beginning. The highest part of the island of Lobos, as seen from the road, did not seem much higher than the top-mast head of a large ship. The soil is a hungry white clayish earth, mixed with sand and rocks ”

“ Among the red-letter days of the trip will be a sail among the Loffoden Islands, “jagged as the jaws of a shark,” and swarming with sea-fowl; a glimpse at the neighborhood of the Maelström, so celebrated in fable; a visit to a Lapp encampment, and an occasional stroll through some of the towns at which the steamer stays. Tromsö is one of these halting-places: it is a modern town, which has grown rapidly. ”

“ The heaviness of the rain shortened our voyage, but we landed on one island planted with yew, and stocked with deer, and on another containing perhaps not more than half an acre, remarkable for the ruins of an old castle, on which the osprey builds her annual nest. Had Loch Lomond been in a happier climate, it would have been the boast of wealth and vanity to own one of the little spots which it incloses, and to have employed upon it all the arts of embellishment. But as it is, the islets, which court the gazer at a distance, disgust him at his approach, when he finds, instead of soft lawns ”

“ The view of the Lofoden Islands as we approached across the fjord is magnificent; long lines of mountains rise directly from the sea between three and four thousand feet high, their tops ending in sharply outlined pinnacles, with patches of snow on the summits and sides, and often a cloud floating upon the highest peaks. The mountains are great masses of dark rock wholly destitute of vegetation, except a covering of green moss which is luminous especially in damp weather. ”

“ He met Ramuntcho in the Basque country, but dearer than all to him is Brittany: here it was that he met his Iceland fishermen.
The Breton soul bears an imprint of Armorica's primitive soil: it is melancholy and noble. There is an undefinable charm about those arid lands and those sod-flanked hills of granite, whose sole horizon is the far-stretching sea. Europe ends here, and beyond remains only the broad expanse of the ocean. The poor people who dwell here are silent and tenacious: their heart is full of tenderness and of dreams. ”

“ It should also be borne in mind that any accident to a boat among these islands is more likely to prove disastrous than elsewhere, since there are probably not a score out of the twenty thousand Lofoden fishermen who pass half their lives on the water, who know how to swim. The water is too cold to make bathing a luxury, and they are not sufficiently prepossessed in favour of cleanliness to make it a duty. Nevertheless, they are bold sailors, in their way, and a tougher, hardier, more athletic class of men it would be difficult to find. ”

“ Between the Loffoden Isles and Tromsö "there is an arm of the And Fjord to be crossed, and the water is literally covered and alive with birds, and with great shoals of mackerel and tumbling porpoises; sea-eagles sway and swoop above the ship, and the air is darkened with the strong flight of the northern diver, the guillemot, and the cormorant; while the masses on the rocks are hardly to be distinguished from the great heaps of seaweed." ”

“ It was quite dark when I reached Paimpol, and the little street lamps were lit. I tried to mingle in the crowd which moved about the square and consisted for the most part of those sailors who are known in these parts as Icelanders, men who exile themselves every summer, for six months, in the dangerous fishing expeditions to the cold northern seas.
None of these men was alone. They perambulated the streets, singing, with young women on their arm, sisters, sweethearts, mistresses. And these pictures of happiness and life made me feel my own utter loneliness. ”

“ This part of Norway is called Finmarken. The country is here very barren. No vegetation, excepting grass, is found, and the population, chiefly Finns and Lapps, live on the mountains and care for their great herds of reindeer, or, they live on the islands and fish from season to season. Fishing, as is well known, is the life-blood of Norway's industrial existence. I give these facts because this great mission field is little known, even now, in our Church history.
I was called to go on a mission to Nordland, which includes many cities such as Namsos, Bodo, Harstad, and Tromso. ”

“ Although we had daylight the whole twenty-four hours, travellers do not consider that their duty is fulfilled unless they see the sun itself, exactly at midnight. In the morning, we touched at Throndenaes, on the northern side of Hindöe, a beautiful bay with green and wooded shores, and then, leaving the Lofodens behind us, entered the archipelago of large islands which lines the coast of Finmark. Though built on the same grand and imposing scale as the Lofodens, these islands are somewhat less jagged and abrupt in their forms, and exhibit a much more luxuriant vegetation. ”