Polar evening January 31st:

The first polar evening will be held on Friday, January 31st at 7:00 PM. Trygve will give a lecture on; "The first modern fishing fleet. The era of ice fishing in Hareid and Ulstein 1800-19.00."

Trygve Brandal is an expatriate from Brandøy, now living in Hjelmeland in Ryfylke, and works as a senior conservator at the Ryfylke Museum.

Over 30 years ago, he wrote a major thesis in history about the period of transformation in the fishing and trapping industry in Hareid and Ulstein from 1880 to 1920. It is material from this that is the starting point for his lecture at the polar evening at the Ishavsmuseet on Friday, January 31.

The lecture is entitled "The first modern fishing fleet. The skating era in Hareid and Ulstein 1880-1900." The remarkable thing about Hareid and Ulstein in the first two decades of the 1900th century was the emergence of the many fishing steamers and sealers here. With 36 such vessels in 1920, the villages here had a remarkable position in Norwegian coastal industry.

In his lecture, Brandal will concentrate on the prehistory of this development. Before the transition to steam-powered fishing steamers and fishing vessels, there was a preparatory period, a first step in the development, and there was a transition from open boats to covered sailing ships, to ice boats. This transition is largely a prerequisite for the strong growth in steam-powered fishing and fishing boats that came after 1900. The ice age is like an overture, a prelude, to what was to come, the many steamboats, which put Hareid and Ulstein in a special position on the coast. It is this first modernization of the fishing fleet, the ice age, that will be the theme of the polar evening. You will hear about the sailing ships, the owners and the fishermen, about the fisheries they operated and the shipwrecks that occurred. The most dramatic shipwreck was the schooner "Perlen" by Brandal, which sank while fishing for cod on the Sunnmøre coast in 1887, with its entire crew of nine men.

In the usual style, dinner will be served after the lecture for those who wish to do so. This time, the menu will feature clipfish with side dishes. Please register by calling 700 92 004 / webjorn@ishavsmuseet.no when ordering dinner.