This very useful fish formerly waged a mortal warfare with the herring in the region of Stavanger, very much farther south. The herring were the aborigines in that region, but in 1784 a battle resulted in a complete cod victory. For twenty-four years the cod held the fort. In 1808 a herring Napoleon arose and led his forces to victory. The cod were completely routed, and for sixty-one years the herring rejoiced in their native stamping ground, and the fishermen did not catch a single cod. In 1869 the cod again “came back” and have held their place ever since. However, there is no knowing when another Napoleon herring may arise. Perhaps fishes as well as men need a Hague Tribunal, and a Carnegie Foundation, and a Nobel Peace Prize.
These fishermen live a precarious and a dangerous life. Violent storms often spring up suddenly and toss their little smacks in all directions. In 1848, on February 11, five hundred fishermen were drowned in such a storm.
On one of the southern islands is a natural trap called “Whale Creek,” into which whales occasionally swim at high tide, and, being unable to turn around, find themselves stranded when the tide goes out. There is sea “life” all around these Lofoten Islands. There are eider ducks by the million, whose down is so valuable. These little ducks are said to have the power of diving one hundred and twenty feet for the crabs which form their daily bread. Lobsters and seals also bring a handsome revenue into the coffers of the natives. Of course sea gulls and porpoises are everywhere. Also there is a whole tribe of birds called “skua,” who live entirely by brigandage and highway robbery. Through laziness or inability, they will not or cannot earn their own “keep,” and they lie in wait and rob the sea gulls of their prey. If a Norwegian sea gull wishes to have any peace he must seek some secluded spot where he may dive and seize his prey unmolested by these skua thieves.
The most important stopping place in the Lofoten Islands is the town of Svolvaer. The same author who thinks that the Lofotens in general are “picturesque” finds Svolvaer “most picturesque.” Well, whatever adjective you do use to characterize the islands in general, you must, in all fairness, apply in the superlative degree to Svolvaer. The great, raw cliffs, two thousand feet high, come so close to the water’s edge and rise so sheer that the little town gives the appearance of one flattening himself against the rock and clinging by his finger nails and eyebrows. The ships in the harbor look like discarded peanut shells beside these towering walls of rock.
The shape of these boats, particularly of the small rowboats, gives away their pedigree instantly. They are unmistakably descendants of the vikings. They have high prows and high sterns, and these are adorned with various viking ornamentations.
At Svolvaer several Sea-Lapps came to the wharf to meet our steamer. They are rather poor specimens of Laplanders. They have given up their old, wandering reindeer life and are making a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to be Norwegian fishermen. Being between hay and grass, or rather between reindeer and cod, they are a very scraggly, unkempt lot.
At Lödingen, about a hundred and forty miles from Svolvaer by the steamer’s winding course, I had to change to a little boat, which took me on an eight-hour trip through the long Ofotenfjord to Narvik. This Ofotenfjord is one of the very finest in Norway, and yet it is seldom visited by Americans, as the summer tourist steamers all sail by. We got to Lödingen early in the morning, about seven o’clock, hours before dawn, and were soon chugging over the quiet Ofoten in a little boat of almost steam-launch diminutiveness. About half-past nine there began to be very faint signs that there might be a sun somewhere, and by eleven o’clock it had gotten near enough to the horizon to flood half the sky with a soft glow of changing and indescribable color. I saw many familiar mountains on this trip. Two Matterhorns, a Dent du Midi, a Gramont, and a Fujiyama were unmistakable. Fujiyama was absolutely perfect except that a little part of the top of the cone had been clipped off as though with a giant egg-decapitator. Dent du Midi was perfect, too, only Chillon being absent.
At one of the ports of call on the way to Narvik, a port which apparently consisted of three houses, a small viking boat came out and contributed two persons to our passenger list. After our boat had started again and was well on its way, a little boy appeared from somewhere and suddenly remembered that he had meant to get off at that station. Obligingly, and as a matter of course, the captain signaled to his engineer, the engines were reversed, and the boat chugged back a long way; someone called to the viking rowboat, which came out and got the belated passenger. There is no hurry about anything in this part of Norway, no confusion and no yelling. The people seem to make a point of not talking at all unless they have something that must be said. At several of the stops passengers were transferred back and forth without the assistance of a single spoken word by anybody. The Norwegians, at least in the quieter parts of the country, are as simple and genuine and honest as any people in the world. Truly I believe that it is a certain stolid honesty that makes them often so silent. I think they feel that it would not be quite genuine to say something that did not seem to be worth saying.
About four o’clock in the afternoon, when it had long been night, we came in sight of Narvik. I was astonished to see what a busy, hustling city it was. All along the fjord, in fact all the way from Trondhjem, I had lived in an atmosphere of slow, almost stolid, quiet. No one had been in a hurry. But here was a busy, noisy little city. Hundreds of bright electric lights twinkled in the distance, and from miles away I could hear the clanking of chains, the chugging of machinery, the tooting and puffing of trains, and a thousand other noises that go to the making of a commercial town’s wharves. A Baedeker of fifteen years back does not mention Narvik, for the very good reason that it did not exist; yet now it is the busiest town north of the arctic circle anywhere in the world. The iron mines of Kiruna in Swedish Lapland and the new railway from there to Narvik have made this seaport possible. It is said that now two and a quarter million tons of iron ore are exported annually from Narvik to all parts of the world, a large share going to Emden in Germany. Some of it, strangely enough, finds its way to Philadelphia, and not so very long ago I read in the paper of a collision of one of these Narvik iron-ore ships with an American ship in Delaware Bay. At the time I read the item I had not been to Norway, and I remember wondering where in the world Narvik was, and why an iron-ore ship from there should be in Delaware Bay. It is almost unbelievable that little Norway, with less than three million inhabitants, all told, has the fourth largest commercial fleet in the world, following Great Britain and the United States and Germany; yet such is the case. Narvik now contributes very considerably to this commercial fleet. There are frequently five or six big ships lying in the harbor, and others are always up at the wharves being loaded with ore.
As our little boat drew up at the wharf, a number of hotel porters appeared on the scene, and I tried to judge of them and choose by the appearance of the porters. Full of dignity, and absorbed in my occupation of studying the hotels through their representatives, I stepped boldly off the gangplank. Oh, Judicia! Alas for my dignity. My feet shot out from under me, and I slid into that nest of porters as a man slides for second base. My suit case and rug case bounded merrily away, and my derby rolled off, and just to the edge of the wharf, where it balanced for a long time and finally fell over, between the wharf and the steamer. Those hotel porters had never seen anything so humorous. As soon as they found I was not hurt, they separated into little groups and went off to laugh. One of them fished for my derby and collected my suit case and rug case, for which offices I was so grateful that I finally went to his hotel, which bears the name of Fönix. All Narvik was covered with glare ice, and it required the greatest skill to navigate the streets at all. It was raining gently, which made the ice a trifle more treacherous.