Norway (Promare Norway)

The Arctic indigenous people of northern Scandinavia are known as the Saami; they live in far northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula of Russia.  Primarily fishermen, nomads, and reindeer herders in the past, they lived near the northern fjords in heavily forested areas, though they could often migrate as far as 1,000 km a year to the Gulf of Bothnia.  They were gifted shipwrights, focusing their craft on sewn boats that they often sold to their Norwegian neighbors in the past.   Snorri Sturluson (1179 – 1241), an Icelandic historian, wrote of two 24-oared sewn vessels built by the Saami for King Sigurd Slembadiaekn when he was in the north.   Written sources from the 16th century onwards have referenced the Sea Saamis who regularly constructed vessels for their neighbors in Norway(Westerdah, 1985).

Saami who lived in different regions of Scandinavia had different lifestyles and boat building techniques.  The coastal Saami migrated every year across northern Norway and Sweden to the Gulf of Bothnia in the northern Baltic Sea. The few laced boat finds from the northwest are thus from their summer habitation sites and it is theorized that these Saami transitioned earlier to iron fastened boats than their inland counterparts.  The Forest Saami, who lived farther inland and well into what is now northern Sweden, built a very light laced vessel used on the interior lakes and rivers.  An 18th century account records that the vessels were small but suited to the rapids and currents of the local water; they were so light that they could be carried upon the head of one man who used his birch bark bailer as a cushion.  These vessels were used for a comparatively long time and their dissapearance may have coincided with the collapse of the Forest Saami culture  (Westerdah, 1985).

Scandinavians and Russians began to immigrate to Saami territory in the Medieval period, bringing with them their boat building traditions based on riveted clinker technology.  As a result, the two techniques co-existed for centuries (Jasinski, 1991).

Based upon an analysis conducted of the Scandinavian laced boat finds prior to 1985, Christer Westerdahl published a preliminary ethnic classification of laced boat building traditions.  He determined that the Saami built their light craft between the 9th and 19th centuries AD.  They were different from their Scandinavian predecessors in that they were laced with root fibers and reindeer sinews  (Westerdah, 1985).

Initially called breybarer, the national postal service developed at the same time as the skyss system. Obligation to transport the mail fell once more to private citizens who lived along the route.  As with the skyss system, they were not paid for their labors.  A more formal system was introduced by the Governor of Norway in 1647.  Departures were rare and much of the journey was made overland.  In 1804, an official postal vessel was introduced.  As was used for the skyss system, an åttring painted with the royal monogram and crown, flying a postal flag, was introduced to take mail north from Terråk in northern Norway.  Though weather did not stop the båtpost from sailing, delays by government official preparing missives created a regularly tardy system that played a role in handicapping Norway’s economic development (Bent).

From early Medieval times and into the Post-Medieval period, government and church business often required officials to travel along the coast on official business.  Due to the fact that neither the government nor the church owned their own transportation, a system known as Skyss was developed in order to transport these officials to and from their business.  Skyss was a system of relay transportation provided by members of local seaside communities with stops generally located at the gjestgiveri.   Much to their angst, the individuals called upon to provide Skyss were not rewarded for their labors.  The system became more structured with the development of the tilseiingskyss network in 1648.  Officials stationed along the route were in charge of obtaining the transport for those requiring it (Bent).

Between 1450 and 1850, the Nordland Jekt was the primary means of transportation along the Norwegian coast for both people and cargo.  The Jekts, which were generally 100 feet long with a 30 foot beam, could carry 35-100 tons of cargo amidships. The bow was high and blunt and a small deckhouse occupied the stern. One or two square sails were hung from a single mast amidships. Awkward to handle and requiring large crews, some Jekt owner’s replaced the square sails with the more manageable for and aft rig by the 19th century.  In the late Medieval period, the northernmost of the two Bergen harbors would be filled with over 1,000 Jekts and other small craft between May and September (Bent 2012).

Evidence for the ships in Norway that came after the Vikings is scarcer, and more complex, than for Viking vessels. That isn’t to say that there aren’t archaeological examples.  There are, and comparative studies have been conducted of many of them to determine the characteristics of late medieval vessels in northern Europe.  Three major types of cargo ships would have sailed in Norway’s waters between the 12th and 17thcenturies: Nordic ships, cogs, and hulcs (Crumlin-Pedersen 2000, 230-233).  The ships shared construction features, however, particularly the Nordic ships and cogs during the 12th-13th centuries, and the cogs and hulcs during the 14th-15th centuries.  In some cases they could look so similar that during the 1400’s the same vessel could be called a hulc in one place and a cog in another.