Milford chronicle., 1895-02-22
TRApPINe sALMoN N NoRwAv.
The Peasant Farmers Exc Ont Hard
Subsistence From the Fiords.

]
There is a very singular way of trapping
1 salmon on the Norwegian fiords HerS
and there, as you pass along these great,
aagnifcent fiords, which cut deep into
the heart Of Norway, you may see a soli-
tary figure perched upon a sort of spidery,
fragile looking timber lookout, overhang-
ing the ford. A week later, or a month,
as you pass again, you may see that lonely
figure, his eyes always bent upon the ford
beneath him, still keeping his watch.
The man Is a salmon catcher In his
hands are a couple of long ropes, connect
ed with a net in the water below him, and
day after day he sits gP there intently
watching until be sees a salmon pass into
his net The instant this great event hap
pens he hauls sharply upon the ropes,
closes the mouth of the net, and then, get
sing into his boat, proceeds to pick up the
salmon at his leisure.
The salmon thus caught are sold to
some hotel upon the ford, or sent with
others in ice to Bergen by the next steam
er. The fisherman gets from threepence
to si1pence per pound for his catoh-four-
pence is an average price-and even the
hard earned capture of three or four sal
mon a week procured at the expense of
long, weary days of watching means a
good deal to these poor peasant farmers,
with whom ready money is a scarce com
modify.
The Norwegian peasant farmer is a poor
man indeed, or he would not betake him
self to so preoarious and so monotonous
method Of adding TO his soanty means
Usually he has small patch of land, q
few acres only--a mere garden spot
where little soil lies at the foot of the
rocky mountains that inolose the ford, or
where the soil is always the richest
upon some old moraine, or in some open
valley formed by glaciers in ages Of the
past Here he sOws and reaps his tiny
crops and cuts his grass in August, max
ing hay of it by hanging it upon tall hur-
dies His few cows and goats are in the
byres during the long winter--half starved,
poor creaturesl-and fed, more often than
not, upon dried boughs of the abundant
birch tree. In June the little fiocks and |
herds emerge and are driven up TO the
Saeters, mountain pastures, where the
girls of tho tiny hamlet settle down in
rude huts quite alone, make cheese and
live an idyllic pastoral life until Septem |
ber The farmer always makes his own /
boats-you can buy in Norway a good, |
rOumy, pine built boat for 30 shillings or
is as much a fisherman and boat
man as a farmer, as indeed are all his
family
The farmers eat little or no meat; fat
5rod "a sort of very inferior coarse oat
cake, made Of grain and potatoesl milk,
cheese and fish suffice for the Norwegian
and his family throughout the year The
catching of few salmon each week, there
fore, during the summer is a matter of
much importance to the poorer OF the
peasant proprietors Of this picturesque but
excessively barren country. Norway in
deed is nothing but country of great
pierced by the vast sea water
lords, and one exhibiting a few scanty
patches Of good land Its natives, perhaps
ihe hardest, simplest kindliest and most
lonest folk now in Europe, fare hard in
Iced, and their wants are few and scanty-
Pail Mall Gazette.