Northern Scandinavia's forgotten lifestyle- family of 14 in remote cabin

I think about living here, it's like isolation, I mean healthcare, everything was out. I mean if you hurt yourself out here, the nearest doctor was hours away. So it was, yeah, it's a harsh life. When my father grew up, he had to have everything he needed at this place. Because if he didn't have it, you had to drive four hours to get it. But when he lived here, they didn't have a car, they rode everywhere when they were going around. Yeah, it's going to be an extra day today. But it was a really, really harsh life. Yes, harsh life, really. And you had to row to get anything. So yeah, it would look similar to this when my father grew up, yes. There would have been a farm out here? Yes, this was actually many farms. And in Norway, this was typical like a fish farm. Not like a fish farm, fish farm, but they did fishing and they had a little bit of farming. So everybody had a couple of goats, maybe a milk cow. So my father, when he grew up, he had a couple of milk cows, some sheep. And they did a lot of fishing for food. So they always had, I mean, my father said that they were poor, but they always had food. You know, always potato and fish they had, you know. So they never starved, you know. But I mean, my father is so old, he remembers when he got his first orange, you know. You've never had an orange before? No, no. So I mean, he was maybe seven years old and he got his first orange. Because everything was either made or they traded. Yes, yes. So they would get sugar from somebody maybe in another part of the island? Yes, yeah. But I mean, but they were really poor. And that's actually also why you see this landscape is like this. Because this is more like the original landscape in Lofoten. Like rocky, big rocks coming down like this. But my family didn't have the money to dynamite it flat. So a lot of places you see in Lofoten looked like this before they kind of did the machinery and dynamite and made fields of it, you know. So your father grew up out here basically fishing and farming? Yes. So it was a really hard life. He worked since he was maybe three, four, five years old. They had to begin working. He got a big cod today. Six kilos cod. Huge! How big was it? How big was the fish? Like this? Really? It's just that one fish? Yes, one fish, yes. It's interesting. So it's smaller. I mean, you see everything sort of... Yes, and people wasn't at all that attractive. You know, they were small actually, physically, you know. They were? Because of the food? Diet? I don't know. Maybe people mostly ate fish here. What you see now is one of the best fishing places in Europe. It's where you get skre. It's the cod that comes in. So in the wintertime there's like just hundreds and hundreds of boats fishing here. Life in the villages the year round is deadly monotonous, except during the fishing season. Then the villages and stations come to life. And thousands of fishermen flock to them in boats which trace their ancestry back to the Vikings' ancient craft. And they've done that for many, many thousands of years. So it's just back to the Vikings and before that they did the fishing. So that was what my father grew up with. So you were self-sufficient? Yes, yes, they had to be. And they had some shops, but then you had to go rowing to get to the shops. So normally you caught fish and you dried the fish and then you went off selling it and then you got flour back or sugar. It was a hard life. It would have been wood burning stoves? Yes, everything was quite simple here when I grew up here. Because obviously no electric. No, no, no. Some of the furniture is the same even? Some of it is original, but a lot of it got wrecked. But the artist who owns it has been really good at getting old things from the same age. So they have been really fantastic of restoration here. And they also have used time of getting the right paint, like the right type of paints and colors. It's beautiful, it has a lot of character. Yes, yes. And nothing is new here. All the... It just all fits so well. Everything feels from the period. Yes. It's nice how this is nestled next to the rock. I mean, is this protection? Yes. So if you see from the outside, you can see how they made a rock into the cement. The whole house is connected to a big rock. So I guess they did the cement end on this house just to have a stable anchor somewhere, you know, I guess. Because they have the storms coming in from Russia and the North Barents Sea and the weather is heavy here. So that is one of the design choices. It was done by need, you know. This is the living room. So it's really nice. Oh, yeah. And they put in really old ovens that they restored. And you can see how old it is, it's like roughed, you know, like really used a lot, you know. You can see it's been boiling a lot of water or something. So my father lived here. There were two families living here with his grandparents. So there were at least 14 people just in this house when he grew up here. So they were just lying around. Fourteen. So my grandfather and grandmother lived down there and someone lived in the living room. And so when they went up in the morning, they had to take away the bedclothes and then the family could use their living room. So, yeah, everything here was really crowded. Normally they had between 9 and 15 kids. I mean, there was a lot of kids there. Two families that were related, like an uncle. Yeah, related family. So it was my uncle's of my father. Yeah, so it was crowded, a lot of people. I wonder if people got along better or worse. Well, my father don't talk about that, so I don't know. This would have been like a chamber pot or a sink? I think that's what maybe actually was a toilet, actually. So you fill it up and you, yeah, I think so, but I never tried it. You see the log here doesn't fit. So this is from something else, you know. And there's a lot of these scars on other places in here. This shows that the timber comes from somewhere else. Yeah, so you can see like this place, suddenly there is a gap, you know. So this is probably moved from somewhere, some place. We don't know where it comes from originally. So it can be maybe 15, 16, 17. Several hundred years old? Yes. Okay. More than we know about. Interesting, though, how it's just kind of open. I mean, it's just a wall that's not sealed. And that's also why this house survived. It survived because it was a good roof and because it was ventilated all the time. You know, the air always pulled through here. So it's not nice in the wintertime, of course, but it did make the house survive. Because it breezes through. Or else it would have been rotting up if it was too locked down. It's like a new house, you know, in Norway now they rot up. So the fact that it was drafty helped the builders stay up? Yes, yes. And also, isn't that the reason why Lofoten is so good for fish to dry? Because you have good wind here for that? Yes, and it's cold and it has to be cold so the bugs don't eat the fish, of course. So it's also good for food preservation. Yes, yes. And house preservation. Yes, yes, it is. But the problem now is like the nature is changing. So the temperatures are up and down. So actually it's more difficult now to make dried fish than before. So you see that the foundation was just these big rocks. It's a solid foundation. Yes, you have to have a solid foundation. Because what happens? The storms come right across here? Oh, yes. I mean, the waves are incredibly big here. Because it just comes, I mean, 10 meters high waves from outside and in, you know. So it's really hard. If you get like the wrong tides and the storm together, then it can really wreak havoc, you know, together. And also you have the falling winds because the pressure builds back on the big rocky mountains. And they kind of just come crashing over the mountains and down. And over here you see there's ruins. Was that another building? Oh, yeah, we had a lot of ruins. We still have the ruins here. But there were a lot of boathouses. And there was a lot of, like, I guess this was even for the cows or maybe for a little house. I don't know. Could have been a barn or something. Because they had like small barns everywhere because they took in the hay and they put it in small barns. And there's a barn there and the potato cellar is back there. Like in these rocks, the ruins. Yeah. Could you explain where the mine is coming from? Oh, yeah. It's a mine from the Second World War. So, yeah. Those are big. I mean... I don't know if it's a German one or an English one. Because the English one also had a lot of mines out there. Because they tried to stop the Germans. So they put the big, big minefields. It was really useful many, many years afterwards. It was really dangerous. And the army had to take out the explosives and demolish it. My father, he remembers when he was five or six years old. He remembered the Tirpitz and the big warships coming in here in the streams. And Germans with machine guns. They did hide the big warships in the streams here. But the English came here with the bombers trying to catch the German warships. And Lofoten is pretty great of hiding ships because it's like high mountains. And, yeah, so it's easy to hide big warships. Yeah. So the Germans had their warships up here? Yes, yes. And they did out and out. Because they wanted to destroy, to get the goods that were going to Russia, you know. So it was like a cat and mouse hunt here all the time for ships. So my father built this 30 years ago. Okay. And he wanted the family to come up here. And we have the whole area here, the three kilometers of seaside is the farm. So we have one more cabin and a big boathouse. And, yeah, so we have a lot of space. So, yeah. So for us, there's also a lot of maintenance because of the storms here. So like two years ago, the storm took the roof of the boathouse. And, yeah, everything cost money. So, I mean, the storm takes out the windows. Really? So we have to have storm things on the windows in the wintertime. So these ones are okay. But in the other cabin I have, you can see how the storm has broken the glass in the windows. So harsh. Really harsh, yes. And big waves coming up, crashing in. So it's, yeah, you can't have anything out there that's kind of taken by the wind or anything. It will get crushed. And this place, so your dad built this sort of for the family? Yes, yes. So it's new in a way. But it's built on old, there was a house here before. So everything we build, we have built on old grounds. Because, I mean, the old people, they knew how to put the houses up to not get caught by winds and stuff. And, yeah, we have some new huts around here. And they were not that lucky in the storm. So, like, one of the storms actually imploded the roof inside the cabin. So the whole roof just, yeah. So, yeah, you should think about where you put things here. Because the storms really wreak havoc here. So here it looks like did he build little nooks and rooms for the kids? Yeah, now I love this place because it was furthest away from my parents as a teenager. So, yeah, so this place was like one of the good places to sleep. And, yeah, my father snored a lot. So it was very nice that he was there and I was here. He was on the other side? Yeah, no, he was down there. So it was for a family? Yes, I mean, there was always a lot of family here. So we, at least, we could be ten to ten people in this place. So it was always very crowded. Bye. Yeah, so the idea was a lot of places to sleep. So it was built very efficiently. So it's like a small cabin with a lot of space inside. It's only 50 square meters big. But it seems maybe a little bigger because also the roof up here. Is it off-grid? Yes, everything is off-grid. Water from the well, electricity from generator and gas for the kitchen appliance. Yeah, so also that was because it was expensive to connect to the line here. Because we are a little bit away. So it was a couple of hundred thousand to connect. And then the electricity in cabins are a lot more expensive than houses in Norway. So when we only live here for a month, it was better just to have a generator and use a little bit of diesel every year. Is this gas? No, no, this is wood. So it's quite easy. But the great thing about this stone is that it's a special stone. So it keeps on heat. So when you fire this up today, it keeps warm until tomorrow. So it's 24 hours of heating in one stone. Why? It's a Kleberstein. So it's just a quite soft stone, actually. So you use it a lot of like when you build things in the old days, because it's easy to chop and to make. But it's really soft and it holds the heat really well. And it radiates the heat. It accumulates over the hours. Yes, yes, yes. But it's so nice. You can just pick it down and put it up again. So it's really easy to build. And I also worked as a carpenter with my father. But there's a lot of little nooks. There's little built-in benches and like everything's kind of... Yeah, we had to try to. And actually, that was the biggest job. It was so many things everywhere after my parents. It's like they just stuffed everything. And I mean, I found car parts from the 60s. You know, it was just a lot of everywhere. But when my father grew up, he had to have everything he needed at this place. So I understand why it was like that. Yeah, you had double of everything. So this was your boathouse? Yes, this is the boathouse. So we actually use it as a boathouse. But it's also a workshop. So like the walls here are from the 1800s. Oh, wow. They use like stone tools on it. So it's not the old, old thing. They used to do the rock around here. I mean, obviously, right? But it's really hard rock. So it's granite. So it's really hard to build with that stuff. So a lot of work. A lot of work. So today I made a door. So then the chaos from the door. Yeah, you know, it's always something. You're always making things. Always making and fixing things. When you are out here, where do you live? Where do you stay? Oh, yeah, you can see it's a great cabin. You see there? Yeah, so I have two boats here. So if you want to use the gray... Are you used to boats? No. So maybe it's better we don't. Okay, if it's a very good day, I can show you and talk you through it. So actually, every year there's a lot of accidents. And here, it's not maybe the storms that is the worst. The worst is the fog. Because it comes so fast. So it can take 10 minutes and then you see nothing. So it's quite like... And it doesn't always look at the weather forecast. At last. Yeah, you don't see anything. Also, we put on floors here. Because we actually had families here. That had to borrow the boathouse. Because they go on camping. And they maybe don't know about camping in the north of Norway. And then they're kind of caught in a storm or something. And they get really wet. It happens in the summertime also. So we had like 20 people just crashing in here. Because their tents and everything was just wet and blowing away. For shelter? Yeah, it was just a shelter for them. I mean, they were freezing. Did you do this roof? Yes. It's just a little rock there. It's just to hold some of the net down. But this roof actually flew off. So this part of the roof. And the storm took away the nets. It pulled off the nets and the roof off. But that was like... The storm was one of the... Biggest? Yeah, and with the strongest wind I had seen. Wow. So it took the roof and the nets and everything. So when the waves come in here, sometimes we find big rocks thrown up here. And sometimes also the waves come in and it goes up the road and it goes out on the bay. So the waves get all the way down? Yes. So my boathouse is often full of sand and yes, from the sea. Wow. I see now how much sense the foundation makes. Because you have it really, really, really attached. Yes. And we also, what you don't see is we have metal inside. So inside there is a skeleton of metal just pulled down. Even on the hot tub? Yes, yes. And in the cabin you are doing, there is a big steel bar on the top of the hut with steel thrown down. So there is rebar reinforcement that goes to the foundation? It goes down in cement to hold it up. So there is no... You are actually extreme weather proof. Yes, yes. And even then my roof went off. Yeah, so... So, yeah. So there is always something to work on. Yes, always something that storms have ruined. And I like building things and fixing things, so it's okay. But it's not fun fixing things that are destroyed by the storm. I don't like that, but yes. It's funny how for your father this was like harsh and hard living. Yeah. But for us, we come back and even you, it's picturesque and the intensity and the harshness is part of the charm, I guess, right? Yeah, yeah. Now you probably appreciate it, right? I mean, coming out here and having this connection with the place. Yeah. But when my father grew up here, he did not appreciate it. He did not appreciate it at all. Not at all. You think now he would appreciate it? Oh, yeah, yeah, now he did. And it was really nice for him to get up here now.