Tromsø

I'm totally exhausted. In a good way. An intense week is over. Happy and satisfied I'm digesting a week of hard work with a great group of people in Arctic Tromsø.


The planning has been going on since last summer, when Bjørn asked me if I would come up and do a build class in Tromsø. The class was full with 8 students only after a few days, and I've been working on logistics now and then since. We got the very kind offer of using Trondjord school - a small village school 40 minutes out of Tromsø city. 

The plan was to build 8 very different kayaks - all taylored individually to the user. All kayak were Greenlandic types, but most differnt in shape. One East Grenland style kayak, one hybrid Greenland kayak for touring, one replica of an actual well ducumented Greenlandic kayak, one South Greenland style kayak, two West Greenland style kayaks and two hybrid rolling kayaks. 

Fred, one of the students offered to take the materials by car from my workshop to Tromsø - a 1700 km. drive. So with a bunch of wood, tools and fabric, we started out last Saturday.

Bjørn and Ragni doweling the ribs to the gunwales of Ragnis kayak.
Fred planing the stern of his South Greenland style kayak.
Rune is cutting the bow.
Peter Lasse deeply concentrated on sewing the deck.
Mats sewing the deck.
5 of the finished kayaks waiting to be transported to their new homes.

It has been a blast! Great fun with good talented people. Lots of good humor and productive days. Tromsø is still beautiful, even though the city has changed a lot since my first visit in the early 1990's. On my way home I was confronted with the new realities when I almost lost my plane due to the general chaos of having too many tourists in a tiny airport. I'm happy that we spent the week outside the city. Only thing that broke the silence was the sound of strong gusts of wind, hail and rain on the windows and the occational yell when someone pricked their finger with the needle.

Rune, one of the students, did this little photo montage that shows the whole project in a beautiful way:

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