Jektefart, Lofoten fishing and Sami culture

28 February 2025

In recent weeks, we have both had, and been on, several school visits. Although the topics vary, they are connected. At Bø Museum there is the photo exhibition My ship is loaded with.. who show off the objects of the Bruun family on Børøya in Hadsel. It is not just any objects. We’re talking tortoiseshell hair combs and gold rings with human hair. The Bruun family owned many jekts over a 100-year period, from the mid-1700s to the mid-1800s. This period contains three generations of Bruun.

The Bruun Collection

The Bruun collection includes 17 christening hats in beautiful fabrics and with gold embroidery. Each child who was born and baptized was given its own hat. However, only four children grew up. It says something about child mortality at this time and that human tragedies hit hard regardless of wealth. The exhibition also consists of a jekte model and we look at what characterizes a ject. They transported stockfish to Bergen and grain back, and luxury goods. We have also exhibited the fisherman’s work tools. They stand in sharp contrast to the sumptuous objects in the Bruun collection.

The Lofoten fishery

The fishing gear brings us straight to the next topic, namely the Lofoten fishery. The Lofoten fishery takes place from February to April. This was and is an important fishery to get hold of the cod that has swum from the Barents Sea to spawn along the Norwegian coast. 40% of it spawns near Henningsvær. It is a fishing that many Bøfjerdings have participated in.

In the old days, the men brought a special coffin with them to Lofoten, which they called the Lofoten coffin. Here woollen underwear, mittens and lasts were knitted and packed that were to last the time the man was gone. It was the women who were responsible for this equipment. In the Lofoten coffin there is a small room called the vinegar. In the vinegar, the fisherman’s wife had put down personal equipment for her husband. For example, shaving supplies, tobacco, hymn book as well as pen, ink and paper so that she would receive letters when her husband was away. She thought of everything.

The Sami also participated in the Lofoten fishery, which brings us straight to the third topic. The author Regine Normann (1867-1939) writes in the fairy tale Power Against Power about a boat that was fishing in Lofoten full of “cardigan-clad fins”. The students got to hear the first part of this fairy tale, even though it is a bit scary. It is also about death and revenge. Not for the faint-hearted, that is. Sami culture is part of our cultural heritage and should be communicated about as often as possible, not just around the national day in February. There are many Sami and even more with Sami ancestry here in Bø. The next thing we hope for is that Bø municipality puts up signs where the municipality’s name is written in Sami.

We thank children and adults at the schools in Bø for being nice guests and a good audience for our dissemination.