Beret Johanna Paulsdatter Dypvand, or Buks-Beret (Trouser-Beret) was born at Eide in Gullesfjord in 1794. Her Sami family had lived the nomadic life and moved between mountains and fjords, but later they became permanent residents of Gullesfjord.
Several members of the family eventually moved to Ofoten. Beret settled on the farm Djupvatn/Dybvand in Ballangen in Ofoten and married Peder Thomassen from Gällivare in Sweden. The first child on the farm came in 1824. In total, they had seven children together.
Beret was a strong woman, and rowed Lofoten fishing for about forty years, from the 1820s to the 1860s. As a fisherman, it was impractical to wear a coat, dress and skirt, so Beret wore trousers like the men. This is the background for the nickname Buks-Beret.
Beret had his own boat, first a seksring and then an åttring, landed in the boat berth at Forså in Efjord.
“She was better than men. There should be a chosen man who could stand in width with her. She was at the head of her time in all things and there was respect of her corpus, because she was an iron. She was to the letter.”
Bjørnson, Inga: Dundor-Heikka og flere lappers historier fortalt av dem selv : optegnelser fra Ofoten. Cammermeyer, 1916.
“Quite a strange woman”
In this passage, Yngvar Nislsen describes Beret as a “quite strange woman” because she fished and was a captain on her own boat, first a seksring and later an åttring, with crew. From his perspective as a non-Sami, it may have been strange, but in Sami culture it has been common for women to participate in both hunting and fishing. As early as the 1600s, Sami women have been given fishing quotas.
It was not only as a fisherman and skipper that Beret was skilled. She also did small business and traveled around the area. She hunted and did farm work. She was also a “krafsekjerring”, or helper and midwife during childbirth in the area. There were also some rumors of a supernatural nature about Beret, among other things people said that she could steer the sea, so the waves subsided.
Beret died on 29 August 1868 at home on the farm.
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