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The Harpoon Returns: The Persistent Whalers of Norway
| Article
# : |
20617 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1992 |
3,072 Words |
| Author
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Marilyn Stern
Marilyn Stern, a free-lance photojournalist, lived
periodically on Skrova from 1984 to 1989. Her book Kval! Die
Walfanger der Lofoten (Whale! The Whalers of Lofoten),
published by U. Bar Verlag, is awaiting publication in
English. |
On June 29, 1992, at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) Conference in Scotland, the Norwegian government announced that it would resume commercial whaling on a limited scale in 1993, pending the official results of the latest IWC study on the North Atlantic minke whale. The IWC will meet again in Japan in May 1993 to discuss catch quotas and the start date for the whaling season.
Environmentalists in America and western Europe were dismayed by the announcement, but to the whaling and fishing communities of northern Norway it brought hope. For those people, whale hunting is a mainstay of tradition and economic security in a region that has a tenuous hold on both. The community most affected by the decision is on the tiny island of Skrova in the arctic archipelago of Lofoten.
Blessed with a fine harbor, Skrova looks at first glance like any other fishing village along the northern Norwegian coast. Scattered among racks of drying cod, its simple wooden houses are perched precariously on rocky hills. But Skrova has an important distinction: It has been Norway's main whaling station for over half a century and a pioneer in lucrative salmon farming.
During the best whaling years, Skrovaværinger (Skrova residents) had year-round employment, a rarity in north Norway where summer is the weak link between winter-to-spring cod and autumn herring. "Even Skrova's children have summer jobs folding boxes for whale meat," I was told by school teacher Liv Ellingsen over Brie and black caviar in 1986. Her husband's firm, Ellingsen Norwegian Seafood, the largest on the island, was grossing more than $18 million a year.
Indeed, Skrova's three hundred odd residents allegedly had the nation's highest per capita income. A bench boldly labeled millionæbenken (the millionaire bench) still sits prominently on the island's ferry quay. The graffiti appeared in the mid-1980s after a journalist wrote that Skrova had a millionaire for each of is hills, a statistic that was only slightly overstated, "We're a very capitalist little island. A very tranquil, happy place," said Liv Ellingsen with obvious pride.
But a time bomb was ticking beneath the tranquility. Four years earlier, in 1982, the IWC had declared a worldwide moratorium against commercial whaling. The Norwegian government, faulting the IWC decision as political and without scientific basis, was refusing to comply with the ban and allowing whaling to continue, albeit with reduced catch quotes.
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