Forbes Magazine: In Cod They Trust

Even in late March the weather can be nasty above the Arctic Circle, especially in the Lofoten Islands, where my German fishing buddy Ingrid Shumway and I were booked to compete in the Lofotcup, Norway's annual two-day cod fishing tournament. A 60-mile archipelago, the Lofotens fan across the Norwegian Sea like scared bait. They are one of the prettiest--and most out there--places on Earth. Sheared and whittled by 20,000 years of glacial ice, the islands are a sweep of 3,000-foot maritime alps and 3-billion-year-old granite plateaus. If Switzerland were flooded, it would look a lot like the Lofoten Islands.

Scattered about are little fishing villages marked by simple fishermen's cabins and two-story wooden cod-drying racks. But don't let the old charm fool you. The place is full of chic coffeehouses, good bookstores, hotels that could win design awards in Milan and some of the most sophisticated seafood anywhere. Especially cod dishes, the Lofotens' still-bustling cod fishery being the reason Viking traders bothered to settle these Lilliputian islands. A thousand years later, in 1991, islanders turned the opening of cod season into a national event and invited out-of-towners.

A word about cod and the Norse. The fish lies in rough relation to northerners as cattle do to Argentineans and sheep to New Zealanders. Norwegians eat it fresh; boiled with fat skeins of its own delicate roe; air-dried and baked into a tomato-based bacalao; or prepped with lye, which turns the fish into something resembling a bar of soap.

Tournament headquarters is in the village of Svolvær, nearly 800 miles (and two more flights) northeast of Oslo. By the time we arrived the light was blue and Svolvær's waterfront looked like Saturday night on Santorini--with Gore-Tex. The cafes were packed with jovial Norwegians, but we managed to squeeze in and enjoy some surprisingly lean and tasty hamburgers.

"Hvalburger," our server corrected. Whales, a fellow fisherman told us, follow the cod, so this was good news.

By morning Svolvær Harbor looked like D-day. Scores of boats carrying 500 or so contestants revved their engines while crews ran around filling bait tanks and checking tackle. Swathed in layers of fleece, wool and rubber, we Gumby-walked to the Blomøy, the 58-foot postwar chartered boat we would share with nine other fishermen, all from Oslo. The day was so clear the mountains looked mythic. The starting horn sounded to a hail of whoops, and we were off. But the moment we left the harbor a north wind kicked up, the sea convulsed, the sky went dead-cod green and ice-pick sleet soon hacked at our faces. We skedaddled into the first handy fjord, but it was so rough there the Norwegian Coast Guard followed us in. Nonetheless, the captain cut to an idle, and the fishing began.

The boat bucked nonstop, one icy wave after another crashed onto the decks, and the wind tied endless knots in our lines. There was something heroic about standing there and surviving. Dock gossip that evening was that almost no cod had been taken by anyone. Something wasn't right.

On the second day we awoke to a perfect Arctic storm. Stowed rope and crab pots made snowy hillocks onshore as we headed out in near whiteout conditions. Within minutes I was totally freezing.

"Dere is no bad weather, only bad clothes," one of the crew noted, glancing helpfully at my dishwashing gloves, which were all that the Svolvær hardware store had left. Then he told us that Blomøy means either "flower island" or "cauliflower" depending, we assumed, on how the fishing was going. The old boat managed to plow through nonstop rollers for 45 minutes before we lurched into another fjord. We resumed battle positions, armed with heavy Norwegian fishing rods and handsomely tooled saltwater reels--all of which counted for nada. After three hours of fish-free torture I'd had it.

Whoever said misery loves company was crazy. All I wanted to do was crawl off somewhere by myself and warm up. I settled for the hold and braved its perilous long vertical ladder only to find a crew member named Odd Burviuk already down there playing "Misty" on his accordion.

"Shouldn't you be running the boat or something?" I asked him.

"Too rough," he replied with a rococo flourish. "I joke. Dis is nothing."

So the old Blomøy can handle weather like this? "Awk!" spat Odd. "She yust need replacement in skandekk, floor and skin. Also dare is tæring damage in the aftermath bastard around some keel bolts in forskipet." After that explanation, he began to play "That Old Black Magic." A yell sounded from above decks. Someone finally had a fish on. I scrambled back up the ladder. The snow had stopped, the air was still, and the Good Ship Cauliflower was bathed in celestial light. I was thrilled to find that the fisherman fighting a fish was Ingrid.

She boated it, too, with a little help from our first mate's gaff. There it was, the ancient Norwegian coastal cod: the Homer Simpson upper jaw, the churlish little chin barbel, the big startled eyes popping out of a scale-less skin. But intriguing. This cold-water cannibal won't hesitate to dine on its younger brethren. It makes its own enzymatic antifreeze that lets it handle water temperatures icy enough to make a grown man … pick up the accordion.

Ingrid's 8-pound cod won her ninth place in the women's division, an achievement we toasted at the Lofotcup awards ceremony on the waterfront that night. But the real celebration began when she led us and some Oslo pals to Svolvær's Rica Hotel, where she had snagged a room with a fishing hole cut into its floor. We settled into armchairs, poured brandy and cast our bait to the wind beneath our now warm feet.

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