5/28 -- Explore Bergen

We started the morning with a walk to a fishing museum, located in an antique fish warehouse.

On the way, we passed a store with this rocking horse,
but Jim noticed it's really a rocking MOOSE.

Fishing has been a key industry in Norway for about forever. The building is  made of trimmed and notched logs with 'knee' pieces for strength. It looked like where the tree had branched out, but it was the bottom part of the tree and the root which made an 'L' shape and was trimmed to support the beams and window openings.

We learned about the history of herring fishing and how it crashed and has come back. In the old days before fishing got so mechanized, there were those who thought the oceans could never be fished out. And when you look at the challenges of the old fishermen, you can see why they felt that way. Herring fishing required the cooperation of several small boats and depending on finding the fish.Once technology improved, the many little guys became a few big guys: the modern equipment is so expensive and the fishing limits so tight, that only a few firms can afford to fish for herring anymore.

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Herring boat, the green thing next to it is called a fish
binoculars and lets the fisherman see where the fish are.

Similarly, the same thing happened with whales. A hand-thrown harpoon had a hard time bringing down a whale and relatively few were caught until the invention of the grenade harpoon . It had a mechanized launcher, and when it hit the whale, there was a mechanism to extend the spines around the head out to hold it in place and set off a grenade, killing the whale more quickly. When the whales around Norway were pretty much harvested out, the whalers discovered lots and lots of great blue whales around Antarctica and wiped out 200,000 of them in no time flat. Norway still hunts minke whales, which seem to be in a sustainable place with the limits put on them. Only Iceland and Japan also hunt whales.

A large part of the reason that Norway never joined the EU was to protect their fishing industry and they were even able to get the EU to agree to extend Norway's fishing rights to 200 miles from the coast. Other small countries with former fishing industries in the EU have found themselves competed out of their home fishing grounds by the EU rules that allow any member state to fish around any other member state. I suppose it makes for the best fish prices, but it has caused consternation in several EU countries we have visited.

In addition, there were a number of really interesting displays, including a bunch of rubber duckies. In 1992, a cargo ship from China was on its way to the US when bad weather resulting in a container with 28,000 rubber duckies falling into the ocean between Korea and Canada. They have been turning up around the world ever since and teaching scientists a lot about how ocean currents work.

Life size model of a Viking boat outside the warehouse.

The warehouses were actually built IN the
water to facilitate the ships unloading.

The warehouse had been used for what was called 'stockfish', meaning cod, which were dried.When the cod was caught, it was loaded to the top floor of the warehouse for sorting. There were over 30 grades sorted onto 3 floors, keeping the best stuff stayed on the top and filtering it on down, depending on the interests and demands of each client.

Before drying, the head was cut off and the tail was left on, which was how the fish was nailed to the drying racks. Once dried, they were bundled like hay and a key part of trade in the area. Bergen was an important trading port for hundreds of years, primarily exporting fish and importing staples like corn, which can't be grown in the short northern summer.

Next we watched a film about the end of the seal hunting business. Apparently, the only thing men wanted from the seals were there furs, and it became a big business. The gentleman who had inheirited a fur seal company told the story of how they worked and their downfall.  In the 60s and 70s Greenpeace started railing against seal hunting and picture of hunters clubbing baby seals to death went viral. The company owner commented that similar things were happening in slaughter houses, but it was hidden, so people didn't get up in arms. One year, he got 250,000 accusing and damning postcards and decided to shut down the business.

We also learned about how Bergen started as a trading post in the1100s and how trade grew and the face of the city changed with fires and new technology to become what it is today.

We had lunch in the museum dining room and afterwards, had a  local violinist play for us and tell us about her instrument. It is a nine-string viiolin, which her grandfather created. The top four strings are all that are directly played. The other five go under the neck and create additional resonance, sort of like how a 12-string guitar sounds more full than a 6-string.  She played several traditional tunes, including one that had quarter tones vs the standard piano scale of half tones- in between a G and a G#, there is space for another tone, called blue or quarter tones. They sound like a mistake but it isn't She called it a milkmaid's tune and she learned it by ear from an old wax recording. The mildmaids would accompany the sheep to the mountain and play the tune to bring the sheep close and to communicate with the other milkmaids in the area. Each tune was unique to one girl. I've uploaded 2 videos below -- the first one is a dance tune with an unusual beat -- 2 quick steps and 1 slower one. The second is the milkmaid tune. I am not sure you can hear the blue tones from a phone recording, but if you hear an off note, then you have.

Under the 4 top catgut strings, you can see 5 skinny metal strings.

Old boat motors hung in the dining room.

 Jim and I split off from the group and walked back along the waterfront. It has been pretty chilly here and I got worried that my fleece, light down, raincoat, and light cotton sweater would be inadequate to the task. Unfortunately, the sweaters I liked were expensive, so we kept walking further into town in hopes of finding a better sale farther from the cruise ships. However, farther from the cruise ships, we found normal people clothing for summer, not wool sweaters despite the fact that we may have snow here overnight and the ship will be heading north. On our way back, we saw a 'house' on the top of the hill and Jim realized it was where we had walked around at the top of the funicular yesterday.

This church, right by our hotel, is the oldest building
in Bergen.

 After a brief rest, we got the schedule for tomorrow and quickly realized that we were going to have to buy a sweater today or hope the shops opened before 10 tomorrow. Veera had planned a short tour of the area to talk about the Hanseatic League and Bryggen (as Bergen was called then), which is right next to our hotel. The hotel is hidden from the harbor side street, but is a massive building out of character with the historic buildings in the area, and new rules were put in place to prevent another such event. Digging out the garage weakened the supports of the nearby buildings, and there are varying degrees of tilt among the group we walked through. They used the same kind of construction as the fish warehouse and now house commercial buildings, some of which emphasize/house local artists.

The brick on the right is our hotel. The wooden building
didn't used to lean.

Hotel on the right, slanting walls on the left
with supports at the base to keep one
section from falling over.

The stone buildings were for cooking and secure storage.

 

A model of a dried cod (except it kept its head)

On the right, you can see more of the knee supports.

The buildings in front lean into each other.

At a time when there were few proper addresses
and fewer people who could read them,
decorations like this unicorn identified locations

Notice what a mess the entry door is.

After the tour, I decided more warmth was good and decided on a merino wool sweater, which I hope means I won't need a turtleneck tee to keep from being itchy, because they are out of season and not available. We had dinner in the hotel and will finish packing in the morning, since we don't leave until 10am. Then on to the ship!