How I finally met the man who saved my life!

I’ve just had one of the biggest weeks of my life. I turned 30, submitted my masters thesis, moved out of my house and traded an amazing Phinney Ridge view for the vagabond life. And to top it all off, on Saturday I finally met the man who saved my life!

It’s fitting to start my travels in Boston – to come ‘home’ to a place from my past. I visited friends in Cambridge and met my undergraduate thesis advisor, Ted Macdonald, for coffee. I wanted to say thank you Ted, once again for your guidance 9 years ago, and for writing those recommendations that got me the Fulbright and accepted to grad school. I hope I’ve done you proud!

My godmother, Brita, picked me up and whisked me away to Newton, MA, which was my home away from home during college. I’ve spent the Easter weekend with Brita, Gary and Tali eating amazing food (including matzo brei, roast lamb and apple pie), hiking in the Blue Hills, and catching up on the details of our lives.

Saturday I took a side-trip to Vermont to visit a Norway Fulbright friend on his farm. Matthew Hoffman spent most of his 20s learning how to be a farmer, and then decided to go back to school for his Ph.D. He studies common property regimes, community development and land use. What he does is called natural resource sociology. After he finished his masters he took a few years off to remodel the farmhouse on his family’s land, and while he worked on his Ph.D. he built an exquisite barn using timber he’d cleared from the property. He took me on a walk through the pastures, forest and his grove of sugar maples, following the tracks of a wild turkey until they disappeared into flight.

My hope for Matthew is that he can find an amazing and satisfying teaching job close enough to home that he can stay on his farm and fill the barn with animals once more!

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Once, during my year in Norway, Matthew and I were sitting at a bar with several other Fulbrighters, and the conversation turned to bears. Most people have a bear story, and we all love telling them. Having grown up in Southeast Alaska, I’ve got a few. There’s the one about the morning I woke up to the sound of the bear dragging my kayak down the beach, and the endless problems of bears rifling through garbage cans. But I told my favorite: the one about the time Tom Bodett saved my mother and me (in utero) from a bear attack! She was running outside of Petersburg, the town where I grew up, when a black bear began loping directly toward her across the muskeg. She stopped and screamed, but luckily a pick-up truck rounded the bend. Tom, a local carpenter, was at the wheel. He saw the scene unfolding and hit the gas, arriving just in time to drive between the bear and my mom, deflecting the charge. Breathless, she clambered into the cab…

“Have you ever heard of Tom Bodett?” I asked the crowd? “You know, the voice of Motel 6? ‘I’ll leave the light on for ya.’ I think he also appears regularly on Wait Wait… Don’t Tell me! Yup, he saved my life!”

Matthew looked at me funny. “Tom Bodett?”

“Yeah… have you heard of him?”

“Uh, Tom Bodett is my next door neighbor in Vermont. He’s looking after my farm for me right now…”

“What?!!”

You see, Tom had moved away from Petersburg in 1982. He'd spent some time in Homer, AK where he'd gotten his first big break in the radio scene, and eventually he'd moved East to pursue that career. I had never met him, and didn't think I ever would!

Matthew and I wrote a letter to Tom Bodett, in which I was finally able to express my gratitude. “Thank you, Tom,” I wrote, “for saving my life. Without you, I wouldn’t be in Norway studying wild salmon restoration!”

But still I had never been able to thank him in person. On Saturday Matthew and I stopped to knock on Tom’s door. I expected him to be off somewhere recording a radio show, but we caught him at home. He was delighted to meet me. He says he tells the story often! And now, 30 years later, the story goes on!

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This trip is about integrating pieces of my life, about celebration and reflection, and about re-connection. And just pure and simple vacation, too!

After Boston I’m heading to Maine to spend a week with Sarah and Pete helping out on their farm (http://www.smallwonderorganics.com/). Then I’ll dip into big city life in New York before flying to Europe. I’ll be returning to Bergen, Norway for 1 month where I’ll live with my third cousin, Marta Kristin, and do some work for my employer and friend from my Fulbright year, Bjorn Barlaup. I’ll also visit friends in Germany and Spain before heading home to Seattle at the end of June.

I figure this old blog about my Fulbright year in Norway can be expanded to include the present adventures of this Norwegian-American girl! Stay tuned!

Report from Eirik on the 2008 summer of research fishing:

Norsk:
Laksesesongen i år vart prega av mykje oppdrettslaks. 2/3 av laksen var oppdrett. Til saman fekk eg 86 oppdrett og 43 villaks.Dei fleste av laksane fekk eg på Skolmen, men ein del vart og teke i kilenota. Helge Furnes fekk vel cirka 30 laksar. Dette var lite villaks som kom tilbake, sjølv om talet er det høgaste eg har fått nokon gong. På grunn av at innsatsen var stor vart talet høgare enn før, men eg trur nok likevel at det kom att meir laks i år enn i fjor då eg berre fekk 18 villaks. i 2006 trur eg eg fekk ca 40, året før vel 20, så hadde eg vel 40 i 2004 og 41 i 2003. 2003 var det året eg sat på gilja sist.

English:
We caught mostly escaped farmed salmon this year - 2/3 of the salmon were farmed. In total I caught 86 farmed and 43 wild salmon. Most of the salmon were caught at Skolmen, but a few of them were caught in the kilenot. Helge Furnes also caught around 30 salmon. This is a very low return of wild salmon, even thought the numbers are the highest I have ever caught. The reason for the higher numbers is that the effort was higher this year than before, but I think even so that more salmon returned this year than last year when I only caught 18 wild salmon. In 2006 I think I caught about 40, and the year before about 20. In 2004 it was 40, and 41 in 2003, the last time that I fished from the gilje.

In Other News:

A documentary about the Vosso salmon restoration project came out in November, 2008 on NRK, the Norwegian public television station, which featured Helge Furnes and Eirik and includes amazing footage of Bolstad fjord and the farm where Helge lives. http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/432343

The report on the Vosso salmon restoration project, "Nå eller aldri for Vossolaksen" (Now or Never for the Vosso Salmon) was also published in November, 2008, including a chapter that I wrote about the cultural importance of the Vosso salmon. It can be accessed here:
http://www.dirnat.no/content.ap?thisId=500037788&language=0

Final week fishing in Stamnes

I was fortunate to spend my final week in Norway with good friends in Stamnes. In addition to spending time with great people in a beautiful place, my hope was to participate in some sitjenot fishing (a traditional set-net gear utilizing a fishing tower and a pulley system that closes the net after fish swim in). Because I left Norway in late June I knew I wouldn’t see the peak of the fishing season, but my timing was great in that I got to help set out the sitjenot! It was a great opportunity to document the process in photographs.

Johannes Gullbrå was instructor, and Eirik Normann was his flink (quick-learning) pupil. Eirik is a local young man who, through his interest, ensures that knowledge of the sitjenot will not go extinct when the older generation is gone. He uses the traditional sitjenot for research fishing, capturing salmon heading up stream and determining whether they are wild salmon or escaped farmed salmon. If they are wild it is possible to find out whether they were produced at the Voss Hatchery if they have a metal snout-mark or if their adipose fin is clipped. As of August 11^th, Eirik had caught 22 wild salmon, including 7 with clipped adipose fins from the hatchery, and 40 farmed salmon. At the end of this data will be added to previous 6 years of experimental data that is teaching us more about survival threats for the Vosso salmon. This experiment can help us remove or minimize obstacles to restoration of the Vosso salmon.

Rune Gullbrå and Knut Helge Kulshammar came to visit us out at the gilje (the fishing tower from which fishermen watch the net). It has been many years since these guys ‘sat’ since the fishery was closed in 1992. It is clear that there is a lot of nostalgia around the fishery, and it was hilarious and a great privilege to hang out with them in the gilje while they recounted fishing tales – the glory moments when it was horrible weather and impossible to see, but for some reason they knew something was happening and there were 15 salmon in the net. Stories of the old timers, the names carved into the wooden walls marking who sat together each year – Rune and Knut Helge had definitely sat together a few times. By the end of a few seasons these people knew each other almost like brothers.

I was staying with one of the Stamnes fishermen named Hallstein Leiren. He suggested that we invite everyone to a barbecue in honor the Vosso salmon and my departure from Norway. Our plan was to have the party out on a little island owned by Ola Kvamme, but the weather turned very sour. We aborted the island plan and strung up a large tarp over Hallstein’s backyard. 20 people came with food and smiles, including people from Voss and Bolstad up the river. People enjoyed exchanging fishing stories. I was touched when the folks from Voss Hatchery presented me with a gift – a painting of a waterfall near Voss – and thanked me for my efforts on behalf of the Vosso salmon and their communities.

I was also able to thank all of these people for welcoming me into their community so warmly – for one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

Fishing in Tanafjord

Many people told me that a year studying wild salmon in Norway would not be complete without a trip to the north of Norway to see the productive salmon runs of the Tana and Alta fjords.  Although there is some limited commercial fishing for salmon with fixed nets all along the coast of Norway, the larger salmon runs in the far north have continued to support the longest fishing seasons in the country.  The area is also beloved by sportsfishermen for large and plentiful salmon.

When I was in Tromso in March I met several fisheries scholars, and one of them was able to put me in touch with with a native Sami salmon fisherman from the Tanafjord.  I called Jan Larsen and asked him whether I could come 'help' him fish for a week or so.  He was not a man of many words, but he indicated that I could come.  So on June 6th I flew from Bergen to Kirkenes, far to the north near the Russian and Finnish borders.  

The Tana River crosses the border into Finland, and management of this salmon run is thus more complex than in other Norwegian rivers.  In recent years the Norwegian government has begun to reduce fishing time in the Tana system due to declines in salmon runs.  Despite conservation concerns, these reductions are met with significant resistance from the predominantly Sea-Sami population, who see salmon fishing as one of the important pillars of their local culture and economy.

Jan Larsen and his brother, Trygve, have both fished for salmon since they were young, in addition to other fisheries.  Trygve also fishes 'rogn-kjeks', a species of lumpsucker fish that is plump with caviar.  Their home is in Vestre Tana, but from Monday at 6 pm to Friday at 6pm - the period when salmon fishing is allowed - they travel out to their cabin on the fjord near their fishing sites.  They use both krokgarns and kilenots to fish, two different kinds of set-nets.  A krokgarn is a gillnet that is set up in two hooks, with a 'leading net' diverting fish into the gillnet area.  A kilenot is a hanging fish-trap of sorts.  A fish that swims in to a kilenot through a series of openings will not be able to find its way out again.

The week before I came to Tanafjord Jan caught 14 Atlantic salmon.  He had higher hopes for the week I was there, thinking that we might be able to catch up to 100 fish.  However, we ended up with only 9 for the entire week.  For a while they blamed having a woman around for the poor catch, but then I reminded them that we caught 150,000 pounds of sockeye last year in Bristol Bay when I was on board, so they couldn't blame me ;)

Despite our poor catch that week, it was an amazing experience to get to know Jan and Trygve and the rest of their family, to grill wild Atlantic salmon over an open fire in the heart of one of Norway's wildest fjord-systems, and to see real salmon fishing in action in Norway.  I was also able to take side-trips up into the mountains into the territory on the Mountain-Sami people, and during my last two days in Finnmark I caught a ride up the cape to Mehamn, one of the northernmost communities in the world.  I stayed with one of Jan's relatives up there and watched the midnight sun set over the northern ocean.

Sailing with Arne in Sogn og Fjordane

In early May I got a phone call from Arne Vassenden, a nice fellow I had met at a meeting in Voss in December. He had mentioned that he knew some salmon fishermen in the Sogn og Fjordane region (north of the Bergen area), but I never took him up on his offer to set up meetings because I ended up focusing my research closer to Bergen. However, when Arne called he wondered whether I would be interested in taking a sailing trip with him to some of the outer islands outside Sognefjord in June to meet a few fishermen and see some of the most beautiful coastal area in Norway. It's not often someone calls and offers you exactly what you've been dreaming about!

On June 3rd I took the Hurtigbåt (fast boat) from Bergen to Krakhella, then took a bus to Hardbakke to meet Arne and his boat. The boat is a 100-year old wooden rowboat with a viking-style sail and place for max 6 oars. A beautiful craft. For the next three days we would sail west and then north, using wind when we had it and rowing when we didn't. Amazingly the ocean was flat calm and the sky cloud-free during the entire voyage. This led to sunburn and frequent swimming.

Although we did not have midnight sun the light lingered through the night, and it was sometimes hard to remember to go to bed. Sunset faded into sunrise, and I woke up to some of the most breathtaking views I have ever seen. On the second night we camped on top of Alden, a prominent landmark for fishermen in the region because of its relative height. From Alden we could see far in all directions, including a view over Bulandet and Vaerlandet, our destination for the third and final day.

Arne was right - this area of the Norwegian coast is very special. There are no roads out to these intricate, exposed islands. Vaerlandet is known as the 'Venice of Norway' because it is made up of so many tightly spaced small islands with bridges running here and there between them. I can imagine that a bike tour to Vaerlandet would be an amazing vacation, although the fun of sailing through the tiny waterways would be hard to beat. Once we thought the mast would not clear a one-lane cement bridge, but we managed to tilt the boat hard as we rowed slowly under and we snuk through.

One of the most amazing things about Norway is the effectiveness of public transportation connections to the city even from so far out in the middle of nowhere. On the morning of the 4th day I took the early bus from the outer edge of the islands to a ferry that connected to the Hurtigbåt back in Krakhella and returned me to Bergen a few hours later.

Thank you, Arne!

Ole goes to the doctor...

Lena had been pestering Ole to go to the doctor and get a check up for a long time, and finally when Ole was feeling "not so good" he went in to find out what was wrong. It didn't take the doctor long to find that Ole was full of cancer and had no more than a couple of weeks to live. Well, the diagnosis made Ole feel even worse, and he went home to spend his last days. He was in the upstairs bedroom on his deathbed a week later, and feeling worse than ever, when he noticed the most wonderful smell wafting up the stairs. Lena was making lefse down in the kitchen! It smelled so good to Ole that he dragged himself out of bed, down the stairs, and across the kitchen. He was reaching up for a piece of lefse when Lena rapped him on the knuckles and scolded, "That's not for you Ole! It's for the funeral!"

(This joke submission from Keith Anderson. Thanks!)

Ole and Lena stranded on an uninhabited island...

Ole and Lena were the only survivors from a steamboat sinking in the South Seas. They separately made their way to un uninhabited island. Ole was pretty shy, so he didn't talk much with Lena. But one day, after a few months, Lena could stand the loneliness not longer. She cornered Ole and said, suggestively, "Ole, you got what I want, and I got what you want." Ole thought for a moment and his face suddenly brightened. "Lena, you got snoose!!!????"

(Thanks to Don McManman for the joke submission!)