LAUKVIK, LOFOTEN: I love your army! It's freedom, not all the hustle and bustle! Mane your own master out here!

As the waves clattered against the hull, Master Chief Geir Inge Sivertsen and deck commander Karl Petter Adolfsen gazed against the morning light that penetrated behind the white-decked Lofoten mountains. Once again, the Barents Sea wanderer, the Skreien, returns to the cold and clear sea areas outside the Lofoten Islands to spawn, as it has done since the Viking Age. The Lofoten fishery, very-its largest cod fishery, is underway.

- We earn money and there will be life in the camp.There is something special about Lofotfisk. “There is speed on the docks,” says the helmsman as he keeps a tight grip on the rudder and maneuvers the spinning paddle “Sivertsen jr” in 8 knots through the sail to the “outermost” of the Lofoten wall. The passage in Laukvika Ivaågan municipality has been nicknamed “Devil's Gate” because of the strong current, and rightly so.

When the waves are tamed, the fishermen grab their well-deserved coffee spoons, hunt for sea gold using the sonar and strike up a chat with the brothers Arne and Bjarnepa on the neighboring boat “Ingo.”

- Hello, are you awake? Yeah, I'm gonna hear the cross the straw, hear the radio connection.

‍RECORD EXPORTS

For hundreds of years, Lofotfisket has added great value to coastal communities in northern Norway. Among other things, Nidaros Cathedral and Bergenby are built on dry fish from Lofoten. It is a cultural story Sivert-sen proudly brings forward.

“That's why I took over from my father in a way. At first we went out to sea together, but then I bought mine alone,” he says.

He started his fishing career as a tongue cutter at the age of six, and at the age of 13 he got his first back bite. Today, the 44-year-old ring has its own spinning paddle and a quota of 100 tons. In a normal season, crews leave on two the full quota over the course of one and a half to two months. It brings in around NOK 1.5 million in revenue.