THE FISHERMAN Eli Kristoffersen, fisherman
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Fishing is the main industry in Ilulissat, where both large trawlers and small dinghies land their catch. Eli Kristoffersen has been fishing since he was 17 and goes out on the Icefjord every morning.
In Ilulissat Harbour, hundreds of small fishing boats lie close together, side by side. On one of them, a POCA 600 with a 225 horsepower engine, stands Eli Kristoffersen. He’s just returned from Oqaatsut, where he sold and delivered the day’s catch of Greenland halibut. This is what he does every day. Eli has been fishing since he was 17 years old, and when he turned 21, he bought his own boat. Every morning at six, he readies the boat, and by seven, he is on the water, dropping his 500-metre, 1,000-hook long line. All he can do then is wait a few hours and hope for the best. In the summer, he makes a second trip in the early hours of the night but returns in time to sell the night’s catch in the morning when the fish factory opens. Long-line fishing is a method that has been in use for generations in Greenland. Once the hooks are baited, the line is lowered to the sea floor to reach the deep waters where the halibut live. A Greenland halibut can grow up to 1.2 metres in length and weigh more than 45 kilos, although the typical size of the catch ranges from 1.5 up to 6 kilos. ‘I used to pull the fish up by hand, using my heart as the engine,’ says Eli, as he pounds his chest. Today, he has a small engine to do the heavy lifting of pulling in the line. To Eli, every day is a good day. Even though fishing is hard work, all year round. In the winter, he makes the two-hour journey by boat to Torsukattak, north of Ilulissat, to fish and returns before the end of the day.
