To be read alongside: Here they rest
Doing fieldwork opens your ears to the story of place and people. Two weeks in, after listening to stories gathered over seasons, years and generations, I don't know where to begin to retell the depth of what I've heard so far. I'll make an attempt to share one of them connected to the image of Norway's most-western graveyard, located at Husøy. Many of the last permanent residents of the area, or what we call fastbuande, rest here. It's late Friday evening and I've taken the boat out for the first time on my own. As I secure the boat by the old church dock I realise that I've forgotten to keep track of whether the tide is rising or falling. This affects how tight or loose you leave the rope of your boat (at least this is something I believe to have picked up while watching and listening to the boat men). I remind myself that I need to start taking note of the tide as I make a clove hitch. This is the only one of the knots I learned from my grandad that I still remember.
I've visited the graveyard many times before, removing the weeds on great grandad and grandma's grave, then replanting new flowers together with my mum, her sister: aunt Bente and our aunt Laila. This is the first I am here alone. Collective practices have become the solitary act of a visual anthropologist, but in spite of this I haven't had the time to feel lonely yet. As I pass through the gate the sight of an unattended graveyard with weeds growing freely awakes me from reminiscing. When I was younger there was always the smell of freshly cut grass neatly trimmed between the gravestones. Perhaps I'm too early? Or some would say too late. I pull out a humongous dooryard dock from my great grandma's grave to make place for a bouquet of wild flowers. My inner voice reads her name, the golden letters, Anna Henriette Indrevær. The majority of the last names written on the gravestones here are Indrevær, Husøy, Nautøy/Notøy and Utvær. With few exceptions, their names are the same as the islands where they once lived. I walk down toward the end of the graveyard, but have to turn around as my presence is making an oystercatcher cry out in alert. She’s probably got baby birds down at the rocks. Einar, the only heilårsbuar - all year-round inhabitant - at Indrevær, has told me that the birds out here will gradually get used to me and eventually realise that I am of no danger to them. I tell the oystercatcher that I'll be back.
I take a picture of the graveyard from the outside instead. I notice that it is the shape of a boat. Isn't it strange how a graveyard by the sea has taken this form? The entrance to the far right was once part of a church. It has been relocated twice, first from Utvær to Husøy, then from Husøy to Straume. If you look across Straumfjorden, to the east of the graveyard, you can see its new location, a white formation on a rocky grey-blue backdrop. The legend goes that there was a priest who had had enough of his services at Utvær being affected by bad weather - messefall. Once it was so bad that the churchgoers were stuck on the island for a whole week. It was decided that the church had to be moved further inland to prevent this from happening. It was deconstructed and then rebuilt on Husøy. This method of reusing the material was common in the area and the history of many houses on these islands can be traced back to a different location than where they are currently situated. In 1896, the new church in Straume was built. At the time there were 280 people living on the inner side of Straumsfjord and 200 on the outer side. Apparently this was one of the arguments for moving the church further inland. The people of Husøy, Nautøy and Indrevær now had to row across Straumsfjorden, meaning the Current Fjord, known for its strong currents to get to church. According to one of my participants, some refused and threatened to dismember themselves from the Church of Norway. The church at Husøy was sold in 1900, and is now a chapel in Leirvågen. This "centralisation" of the church is perhaps one of the first official indicators pointing to the remoteness of "øyene lengst ute i vest" - the islands to the farthest west. A place where the weather reigns and can make the toughest fishermen and the strongest believer of God værfast - weather-bound.
Utvær Kapellet by Wilhelm Leknesund in Solund Sogeskrift 2010.
Thank you to Geir Indrevær for sharing this story with me and lending me this book.
