After Ottar meets us at the fishing shop, we walk round the
harbour; it’s a cold day and it’s too windy to fish. He explains
why it’s become harder for small-scale fishermen, even since
the late 1990s. “Back then, you’d get NOK20 for 1kg of cod; now
you’re lucky to get half that, while the cost of fuel has tripled,” he
says. “Everything’s more expensive; if you’re a young person and
thinking of getting into fishing, forget it.” Indeed, for Ottar, fishing
is only one of his jobs; many people in Ålesund have migrated
towards the oil industry and he spends about a third of his time
working on an oil platform. He also drives a taxi.
We head up the hill to meet his uncle at the Sjømanns Kvile, or
Seaman’s Rest, a subsidised block of flats for local fishermen, many
of them of advancing age. There are wooden boats in many of the
windows, and the porch is covered in old photos of sea captains and
paintings of the harbour. We interrupt Elias as he’s tucking into a
lunch of cod roe and liver in his kitchen, as – rather incongruously
“
In 1938,
there were
640
boats
fishing cod
in Ålesund...
now there’s
barely 20”
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