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History of my great-grandfather Ole Thorsen (1817 - 1890)
from Limmesand, Vik in Sogn, Norway
By Roald Petter Årbekk posted December 23, 2022
[translated from Norweigan]
To read the original Norweigan language PDF, Click here .
Ole Thorsen was number 6 in a sibling group of 8 — five boys and three girls (over the course of 17 years). The siblings were: Anna 1806 (d.1813, age 7), Nils 1808, Sjur 1810, Brita 1815, Peder 1816, Ole 1817, Randi 1821, and Johannes 1823.
Nils was the oldest boy. Then it was decided that he would take over the farm Limmesand which had been in the family for three generations, since 1762. As they grew up, the other siblings had to come up with something of their own, at least by the time they were 15 -16 years old. His father Tor and mother Brita didn't have it easy. The family of 10 had to have food and clothes. Eldest sister Anna died at the age of 7. The small farm at the edge of the Sognefjord was difficult to live on, it was steep and rocky just up under the mountain. They had managed a small field a little further up towards the mountain at "Vetlestølen". There they had built up a small sæter of stone and peat where they could have the animals in the summer. Fishing for cod, saithe, haddock and herring in the Sognefjord was scarce, but it could be a small addition. It was the land that kept the family machinery running and where everyone had to do their part. My great-grandfather had to do all the usual work on the farm early on, such as picking stones and stacking them into walls and stone fences. It was hard work, putting and picking up potatoes and, not least, looking after the animals. Up the slopes they managed to scythe and sickle and gather enough food to survive.
Early on, Ole tried to get a job in Vik. To get there, he had to row by boat for several hours around Likvorholmen. Along the shore it was far too steep to walk, and there was no road. Vik was a center for the surrounding villages here in the Sognefjord. There was a new post office and bank in addition to the old stone church and a stave church.
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| Limmesand, Vik in Sogn |
At this time, some people had also begun to travel to America, but it was very expensive and uncertain. A trip to America then cost half an annual salary. Here in Vik, it also happened that there were large sailing ships from Germany and other European countries. Impressive to watch for a youngster like Ole! "A lucky one could get a job and go away with a ship like that," he thought. It probably didn't work out, but a little work got these tourists to the small villages along the Sognefjord. After all, it was rich people who were on board there! Ole was a hardworking guy who took the job that was offered to him. One day he was asked if he could imagine mustering on one of the jektas that was ready for sailing to the north. That could be exciting. Ole discussed this with his older brother Sjur. They quickly agreed to sign up, both of them. The boys (now men, aged 32 and 25) took their bags of clothes, bedding and other necessary equipment and mustered on board the jekta.
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| Sognejekt from 1895 |
The brothers Ole and Sjur were now crew members of a Sognejekt that sailed between Western Norway, Bergen and up to Northern Norway. It was hard work on board, but the siblings were used to it. The voyages went north in early May, with grain, salt, spices, liquor and other necessary goods for northerners.
The jektas were the freighters of the time. They could not control the arrival times and arrival times, as only wind in the sails was the driving force. The jekta was not a good sailor, but it could carry large quantities of goods. Southwards, the Sogne jekta was loaded with clipfish, dry fartk, cod liver oil and roe in barrels. Stockfish from Lofoten and clipfish from other places such as Senja, Gratangen and Dragland in Tjeldsundet. In the summer, they returned to Vik after a few months sailing from south to north and then back. The brothers must have done a good job, because the following year they were asked to sign up again. They both did, but now they had come up with an exciting plan.
In the spring of 1844, the brothers disembarked in Gratangen and tried their hand at being farm workers. The farms around Årstein in Gratangen looked promising, with large open fields where the farmers were looking for good and stable labor. The brothers found themselves well settled here with farm work that they were used to from Sogn. There were also plenty of fish here in the fjord. Since the brothers enjoyed themselves and had a good time here in the north, the rest of the family eventually heard about it. After two years, 1846, his brother Peder also came up to Gratangen.
Big brother Nils, who had run the farm for 15 years, also realized that running the farm by the Sognefjord was not sustainable. He was quick in his decisions. (We will hear more about that later…) He had heard about the opportunities that lie up there in Northern Norway. He sold the family property at Limmesand, which had now been in the family for 4 generations, and travelled up to Gratangen with the whole family. His wife Karen and children Thor, Marie, Guttorm and Bertheus. Four brothers had now moved from Sogn to Gratangen and had taken up work on various farms.
Ole enjoyed working in Gratangen, but had a very important agreement there that he had to keep. In the early spring of 1846, he mustered again on one of the first Sognejekts to come north, and was on a trip south towards the Hanseatic city of Bergen with a cargo of fish. After almost two years in Gratangen, he was back in Sogn where his girlfriend Brita had been waiting for him. Ole was a steady guy who was always to be trusted. On April 5th, he married with Brita Olsdatter Finden at Vik Church. The two had future plans together... He had promised that one day he would return to Brita, marry her and take her to the land of Kanan in the north. He kept his word!
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| Marriage: April 5, 1846. Ole and Brita in Vik (according_to_church_records) |
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| On April 19, 1847, the family moved to Årstein in Gratangen |
After a winter in Sogn, in the spring of 1847, Ole was again a crew member on a jekta to the north. Now he had his beloved Brita with him. On 19 April, Ole and Brita were entered into the census in Årstein - Gratangen with a move from Vik in Sogn. He was proud and newly married, and his wife Brita Olsdatter Finden was pregnant. In Gratangen, this new family was ready to settle in and live. But then what all too often happened in those days happened. During the birth of their first child, both Brita and their little girl died at Årstein on June 17.
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| Brita died at Årstein in Gratangen in 1847 |
Ole was a battered man and widower. He wandered for a long time, but still thrived in Gratangen. Eventually there was a relationship with a beautiful neighbor girl at Årstein, Mette Jonetta Danielsdatter (daughter of Daniel and Johanna Bertheussen). She was only 20 years old, had 8 siblings and was 13 years younger than Ole. In the summer, June 7, 1850, he and Mette had their first son, Theodor. He was baptized on August 25th in Tjeldsund Church, where Ole's brother Nils and his family had now set up a farm. The church records state that Theodore had been baptized "illegitimate", as his parents were not married. This was "not quite okay" at the time. Not until October of the same year did they take the time to get married. This happened in Årstein Church. Just over a year later, in April 1852, the next one, Nikoline Maria came into the world. She too was baptized in Tjeldsund Church, on May 31 of the same year. They had become a small family in Årstein in Gratangen.
Peder, who had worked for a year on a farm in Gratangen, moved in 1847 to Dragland in Tjeldsundet, where he took a job with his brother Nils, who was a leaseholder there.
After four brothers had established themselves in the north, their sister Randi Thorsdatter now also came upwards in 1848. She also worked with her older brother Nils in Dragland.
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| Årstein in Gratangen |
At Dragland there was a lot of production of clipfish on the rocks (cliffs) down to the sea. A little way up from the sea there were large fine and lush fields up towards the mountains. Here were much more opportunities for farming than the brothers were used to from the steep, rocky little fields on Limmesand in the Sognefjord. In good years, the Lofoten cod also got past Lødingen and into Fiskefjorden, which is located just outside Dragland, on the Hinnøy side of Tjeldsundet. Now almost the entire Thorsen family from Sogn was suddenly established in Dragland. Only Sjur has been dragged back to Sogn again. Big brother Nils did not quite settle down, and in 1855 his family returned to Sogn as well. But in 1860 they were again here in the north, this time in Lavangen — where they stayed until 1875 when they emigrated to America. In America they use the name Lavanger.
My great-grandfather Ole and his wife Mette found themselves very comfortable at Dragland. Here Theodor and Nikoline grew up. Over the next 22 years, 10 children came into the world at Dragland: Johanna-1854, Beret-1856, Dorthea-1859, Daniel-1861, Lars Olai-1863, Mikal-1866, Magdalena-1868, Emerentse-1871, Joakim-1873, and Thomas-1878. Emerentse who came into the world on a cold January day in 1871 is my grandmother.
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Ole and Mette remained at the small farm in Dragland for the rest of their lives. The property now stretched from the sea and almost a kilometer up to the foothills of the mountains, Trolltind and Jotinden. Large areas of marshes were well arable and nice grazing areas for animals. Ole and Mette, with good help from the children eventually, ran the farm. Ole also ran Lofoten fishing from February to April, like most men here in the north at that time. With good Lofoten seasons, the family could have a good livelihood. They could exchange for goods that they did not procure themselves, such as flour, sugar, salt and equipment for fishing and farming. Now Ole was helping to obtain raw materials for the clipfish cargoes, for the same jektas that brought him north to Gratangen a few years before. The small farm at Dragland had horses, 3 - 4 cows, 8 sheep, some goats and 12 chickens, so the eventually large family had all they needed for food and clothing. There is little that was needed for a large family. The time from child to adult also passed quickly at the time and the oldest of the children moved out when the youngest were born. For example, the elder Theodore got married when his sister (my grandmother) Emerentse was only two years old!
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| Clipfish production at Dragland |
"We had a good time as children", my grandmother used to say, we never lacked anything. But everyday life consisted of hard work and we had to save on most things. Several of the girls eventually took the work of carrying out salted fish from the pier at Dragland, washing and rinsing it in seawater and laying it over the slippery herb rocks on the headland towards Tjeldsundet. Bergene here is excellent for this production.
There was a lot of work to be done on the salted fish. When it was sunny it was laying them out, when there was a hint of rain then it was getting them stacked in heaps. After many days and weeks of stacking back and forth, the salted fish had turned into clipfish and could now be taken to the pier. A lot of heavy work, but the clipfish were worth their weight in gold for Dragland and for the whole society. It was the most exclusive and highest paid commodity that was then exported to large parts of Europe. Clipfish and stockfish accounted for the majority of the foreign trade that Norway had at that time. Many people in Bergen and Trondheim, and elsewhere in Europe, could make themselves rich with clipfish. The exception was probably the fishermen who did the first part of the job, but there was some value for them as well. In May, the fish were loaded aboard the jektas, which then sailed south to Bergen.
Ole and Mette lived in Dragland for the rest of their lives. Ole died in 1890, at the age of 72. Mette lived until 1913, at the age of 83.
The desire to travel, or the craving and perhaps the compulsion to go away and invent something new, continued for the next generations. Seven of Ole and Mette's 12 children emigrated to America from 1886 to around 1900. Nikoline travelled with brothers Mikal and Daniel in 1887. While entering America from Canada in Quebec, she went missing from her brothers. They never heard from her again. It was said that she was kidnapped! My grandmother Emerentse and grandfather Petter, emigrated with the brothers Joakim and Lars Olai to America in 1892. My grandfather struggled on the prairie of North Dakota. Grandma, on the other hand, really enjoyed it. Olga was barely a year old when they left Norway. Their next child, Lars, was born May 11, 1893 in Hatton, North Dakota.
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| Prairie: North Dakota 2019 |
After three years, my grandfather said: "Emerentse, now we go home!" And so it was! Petter made his way home to North Norway and Tjeldsundet, among wild mountains and a sometimes wild sea. After all, he was a fisherman at heart and he enjoyed it. After a few years in a tiny living room in Fiskefjorden, they then moved to Hårvik and then Sandtorg. Petter had by then got his own modern fishing boat, MK Lyn. A 30 foot boat with 8hp Dan engine. Now he had become a man of prosperity!
Most of the descendants from Dragland who emigrated to America and Canada took the name Dragland after their hometown in Tjeldsundet. It is said that well over 1000 descendants "over there" have the name Dragland! Others used the name Olson. (e.g., Daniel Olson who was the son of Ole Thorsen). My grandmother and grandfather made no exception. When they emigrated, they did as others did, they took the international name "Harvig" after their hometown Hårvik in Tjeldsund. I didn't become an American because my grandfather enjoyed the sea and mountains better than an eternal great prairie. In 2019, my wife May and I visited the places where Peter and Emerentse had lived for three years, on the prairie of North Dakota. We then visited several descendants of those who travelled in 1887 and 1892. I absolutely agree with Grandpa Petter, TjeldStrait is best. We did not yet experience the winter with 3 meters of snow and 30 degrees below zero, nor the locust swarms on a crushingly dry summer day with 40 degrees over there.
Living here at Tjeldsundet probably is the best thing! But some of the wanderlust in the family is felt at times in the body.
Roald Petter Årbekk paarbek@online.no
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