The weight of water - Anita Shreve [16]
I am impatient to write of the events of 5 March 1873 (though I would not visit again that night for anything save the Lord’s admonition), but I fear that the occurrences of which I must speak will be incomprehensible to anyone who has not understood what went before. By that I mean not only my own girlhood and womanhood, but also the life of the emigrant to the country of America, in particular the Norwegian emigrant, and most particularly still, the Norwegian emigrant who makes his living by putting his nets into the sea. More is known about those persons who left Norway in the middle of this century because the Norwegian land, even with all its plentiful fjords and fantastical forests, was, in many inhospitable parts of this country, unyielding to the ever-increasing population. Such dearth of land, at that time, refused to permit many households even a modest living in the farming of oats, barley, mangecorn and potatoes. It was these persons who left all they had behind, and who set intrepidly out to sea, and who did not stop on the Atlantic shores, but went instead directly inland to the state of New York, and hence from there into the prairie heartland of the United States of America. These are the emigrants of our Norway who were raised as farmers in the provinces of Stavanger and Bergen and Nedenes, and then abandoned all that they had held dear to begin life anew near the Lake of Michigan, and in the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin and in other states. The life of these emigrants was, I believe and am sorry to have to write, not always as they had imagined it to be, and I have read some of the letters from these wretched persons and have heard of the terrible hardships they had to bear, including, for some, the worst trial of all, the death of those they loved most, including children.
As I have not ever had children, I have been spared this most unthinkable of all losses.
In our village, which was Laurvig, and which was well coasted and had a lovely aspect out to the Laurvigsfjord and to the Skaggerak from many vantage points, some families who made their livings from the sea had gone to America before us. These persons were called “sloopfolk,” as they had sailed in sloops in voyages of one to three months, during which some unfortunates perished, and some new life was born. John and I, who had been married but the year, had heard of such folk, though we did not have the acquaintance of any of these persons intimately, until that day in the seventh month of 1867, when a cousin of John’s whose name was Torwad Holde, and who is since deceased, set sail for new fishing grounds near to the city of Gloucester, off the coast of the state of Massachusetts in America, fishing grounds that were said to hold forth promise of great riches to any and all who would set their nets there. I must add at this point that I did not believe in such fanciful and hollow promises, and would never have left Laurvig, had not John been, I shall have to say it, seduced by the letters of his cousin, Torwad, in particular one letter that I no longer have in my possession but remember in my heart as a consequence of having had to read this letter over and over again to my husband who had not had any schooling because of the necessity of having had to go to sea since the age of eight. I reproduce that letter here as faithfully as I can.
20 September 1867, the Isles of Shoals
My Dear Cousin,
You will he surprised to hear from me in a place different from that where I last wrote to you. I have moved north from the city of Gloucester. Axel Nordahl, who you may remember visited us last year, came to Gloucester to tell myself and Erling Hansen of the fishing settlement of which he was a part at a place called the Isles of Shoals. This is a small grouping of islands nine miles east of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which is not far north of Gloucester. I am now residing with Nordahl and his good family on the island of Appledore,