From left
⁄
Elias Bakkebø,
75,
is said to be the town’s
oldest active fisherman. We
meet him eating a rather
unappetising lunch of cod
liver at the Seaman’s Rest,
a housing block set aside
for fishermen. We later see
Elias and his nephew, Ottar
Ekremsaeter, after a day’s
fishing.
–
a rerun of a 1991 cross-country skiing event plays on the TV in the
living room. Though there’s a language barrier, he’s a gracious host,
offering us a plate of cod roe with rye crackers, which prove to be
something of an acquired taste. However, when we ask if we can join
Ottar and Elias on their boat later, it’s a negative – it’s too dangerous,
they say, though we sense they don’t want two credulous fishing
virgins taking up space on their boat.
Nonetheless, while fishing on a small scale is inevitably
declining, Ålesund on the whole is thriving. Some of Norway’s
biggest fish exporters are here and oil earnings mean the town is
beautifully maintained, from its network of bridges and tunnels to
its famous art nouveau buildings, built in a uniformly elegant style
in 1904 after a fire ravaged the town.
Then, of course, there’s tourism. Regularly voted Norway’s
most beautiful town, Ålesund is nirvana if you’re a visitor who
simply wants to get out on a boat and catch some fish, overlooked
by rugged coastline and a vast, metallic-blue sky. The local tourism
website says that you are “guaranteed to catch fish here”, and
there’s not a lot you can’t do, whether it’s renting your own boat or
taking a day trip to one of the salmon rivers.
We decide to test that out with two fishing trips in a day. For
our first trip, we head out with Stein Magne Hoff, the captain of
a stunning, traditional 15m fishing boat that was built in Lofoten
in 1946. He takes visitors out on it as part of the Actin adventure
sports company (they also do skiing, mountain biking and more).
We only have a few hours and it’s a few weeks until the cod
season starts in earnest, so our catches are limited to a few
smaller fish, but just going out on the boat is great fun. Stein and
his second-in-command, Bjorn Hessen, are clearly good friends,
and are constantly laughing and telling increasingly scattergun
anecdotes. As well as plenty of information about fishing, Bjorn
shows us the fjord-side windows he used to jump out of as a
teenager to impress girls, and the old herring smokehouse from
which they used to pinch fish.
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