Forest Scenes in Norway and Sweden: Being Extracts from the Journal of a Fisherman

by Henry Newland

Birger was delighted at the idea, and, as the Parson would spare none of the boats or boatmen, he took a small praam that belonged to one of the men, and prepared to accompany the Captain on his expedition.

Birger certainly was no fisherman: he could but just throw a clumsy fly, and had never caught a salmon in his life, or seen one, except at table: but harling is a science open to the meanest capacity. It is the manner in which cockney sportsmen catch their salmon in the Tweed, and consists of traversing and re-traversing the width of the river, with a rod and twenty yards of line hanging out of the stern of the boat. The fly thus quarters the water backwards and forwards without any exertion of the fisherman, and even the salmon that seizes it effectually hooks itself before the rod can be taken in hand. On the Tweed, the fisherman has actually nothing to do, but to pay his boatmen, who, by choosing their own course, perform the very little science which this operation requires. In the present case, Birger, having to manage his own boat, was far more the artificer of his own fortune; but his success depended on his skill, not as a fisherman, but as a boatman—an accomplishment in which no Northman is deficient,—rather than on his science and dexterity as a fisherman.

As soon as the exploring party had left, the Parson, with his lieutenant and interpreter, Tom, and the remaining three boatmen, addressed himself seriously to work. Every Norseman is a carpenter; indeed, every Norseman may be set down as a Jack-of-all-trades; and under Tom’s interpretership they very soon began to understand what was wanted.

Under the starboard gunnel of each boat, and close to the right-hand of the sitter, were screwed two copper brackets for the gun, protected by a short curtain of waterproof. On the opposite side was a sort of shelf or ledge for the spare rods; and in the stern-sheets a locker for books, reels, powder-flasks, odds and ends, and, above all, any little store of brandy that they had,—an article which it was very dangerous indeed to have loose in the boat.

Norwegian boats are built like whale boats, with both ends alike, which is not altogether a convenient build for harling—a mode of fishing, which, however much to be deprecated in known rivers, is very useful, indeed almost indispensable, to explorers. To remedy this, a ring and socket was fixed on each quarter of the boat, in order to receive the butt of the rod, and to hold it in an upright position when the fishermen should be otherwise engaged. Under the thwarts of each boat were strapped an axe, a handbill, a hammer, and a bag of nails; and several coils of birch rope were stowed forward. Birch rope, which is a Swedish manufacture from the tough roots of the birch tree, is peculiarly adapted to these purposes, since it has the property of floating on the water, which hempen ropes have not.

Upon the principle of “business first and pleasure afterwards,” so long as anything remained to be done, the Parson had scarcely raised his eyes from his work, or thought of anything else; and so well and so ably had he been seconded, that everything was completely fitted, provisions brought down and stowed, and all ready for starting, a full half-hour before the time specified. His friends were, however, still absent; and thus, having nothing to do, he left the men to take care of the boats, and lounged across the beautiful bridge that connects the town with the opposite shore.

The bridge of Christiansand may well be called beautiful; not, indeed, as a piece of architecture, for it is built, like almost everything in the country, of wood, though with a solidity that would put to shame many of our buildings of far more durable materials. Its beauty lies in its situation, spanning as it does with its eleven broad flat arches, the clear swift stream of the Torjedahl. The depth was such that ships of some burthen were lying on each side of the bridge, the centre compartment of which was moveable; but so clear was the water, that the very foundations of the piers could be seen as the Parson looked over the parapet; and among them a beautiful school of white trout, as clearly defined as if they had been swimming in air, which, much to his satisfaction, he discerned working their way up from the sea. This sight was doubly satisfactory, for he had been ominously shaking his head at the peculiar ultra-marine tint of the waters,—a sight in itself abundantly beautiful, as any one who has seen the Rhone at Geneva can testify, but far from welcome to the eyes of a fisherman, as indicating, beyond a doubt, the presence of melted snow.

The Parson had reached the last arch, and was sitting on the parapet, on the look-out for the returning boats; admiring in the meanwhile the quiet little amphitheatre which forms the last reach of the Torjedahl after its exit from its mountain gorge, and scanning the quaint, old-fashioned town, with its dark-red wooden houses, overtopped by its heavy cathedral, on the tower of which the Lion of Norway, and the Axe of St. Olaf, were glittering in the sun; and occasionally peering into the gabled sheds of its dockyard, from each of which peeped out the bows of a gun-boat,—that formidable flotilla which, during the late wars, had hung on our Baltic trade like a swarm of musquitos, perpetually dispersed by our cruisers, and as perpetually re-united on some different and unexpected point. Beyond this was the island citadel, a place of no strength, indeed, for the strength of Norway does not lie in its fortifications, but a point of considerable beauty in the eye of an artist. The whole of this picture to seaward as well as to landward, was set in by a frame of miniature mountains—not hills, nor anything like hills, but real fantastically shaped mountains, with peaked heads, some of them showing their bare rocks, with little splashes of mica slate sparkling like diamonds, but most of them covered with dark fir to their very summits, only shooting out occasionally a bare cliff, so arid and so perpendicular that no tree could find root on it.

So intently was the Parson gazing on the scene, that it was some time before he caught sight of Birger’s praam, which was rapidly approaching the place where he was sitting, and some time longer before he made out the very uncomfortable position in which his friend was placed. Birger, dexterous enough in the management of a boat, even that most ticklish of boats, the Norwegian praam—a dexterity which any one will appreciate who has ever attempted the navigation of a Welsh coracle, or can picture to himself what it is to be at sea in a washing-tub—had proved an apt scholar in the science of harling; and the Captain, having seen him make two or three traverses without upsetting his boat or entangling his flies, had proceeded on his mission and left him to his own devices. The boat was hardly out of sight when a heavy fish rose at the fly. Birger seized his rod, as he had been directed, but in his agitation forgot to secure his paddles, both of which dropped overboard, and, unseen and unheeded, set out on an independent cruise of their own,—and thus the salmon, of course, had it all his own way. It so happened that he headed to seaward, and the light praam offering very little resistance, and the stream, which was sweeping stilly and steadily at the rate of three or four miles an hour, forwarding him on his way, there was every probability of his reaching it.