Photo: Stein Arne Sæther
Crafting a legacy The history of Norway is in many ways the history of a seafaring people. The ocean provided a lifeline, transportation routes and, with its never-ending tide, a means of tracking time. By Lisa Maria Berg | Photos: Museet Kystens Arv
It is with an urge to keep an ancient craft alive that Einar Borgfjord and his team at Båtskott Boatyard build their fine wooden boats. Using techniques passed down from builder to builder, the small team has been going since 1986. This year, they built boat number 254. “Boatbuilding has taken place in Norway through all ages. A particular revolution took place during the Viking Age, when one saw several different types of boat being made. It was essential to the everyday life of people living along the coast. Fishing was imperative to life here, and you can’t fish if you don’t have a boat,” explains Borgfjord. Together with his colleague, he has carried the ancient craft of boatbuilding into the 21st century. 102 | Issue 127 | August 2019
The craft In a country with plenty of forest, the main material for the craft was always going to be wood. “We follow the process from start to finish. Good material is essential to the boat’s quality, endurance and strength, and we want to ensure that we have the very best. Today, that means that we mainly use spruce and pine. We find and chop the timber ourselves, to ensure that quality through every step, from the moment we locate good timber to when the boat first hits water,” Borgfjord continues. The boat building itself is founded on the clink building principles. Layers of wood overlap each other and are ‘clinked’ together. The famous Viking ships are all built in this fashion, and the team has
come to be experts in the method. “A boat built in wood is perfect for both rowing and sailing. Today, these boats are mostly used on a hobby basis, but throughout history, they played a key role in trade, transport and the provision of food. Scriptures found in England dating back to the 1300s described Norwegians sailing over to sell fish and other products to villages on the east coast of the UK,” Borgfjord explains.
Life at sea The boatyard is part of a bigger museum: Museet Kystens Arv MiST (The