A building arises 

The Museums in Sogn og Fjordane are currently building a conservation and exhibition building for Holvikejekta. After more than 100 years ashore, it will finally get a proper home, Managing Director Anne Kristin Moe at Nordfjord Museum of Cultural History writes. The article was first published in "Jul i Nordfjord" ("Christmas in Nordfjord"). 

Holvikejekta is one of the many large clinker-built jekts that carried goods between fjord and coast, village and city. And the only original of its kind left in Norway. 

Holvikejekta has been stored on land in Gloppefjorden since 1906. Before that, it was only kept there during winter. In the summer months, it made three to four trips to Bergen, carrying goods its owners sought to trade. In this area, the goods were primarily firewood, but also included other wooden materials, lime bast rope and barrel hoops, pails and buckets. 

Potential buyers were firewood traders and merchants, schools, craftsmen and private citizens. For these city voyages, cash trades were the rule, and farmers often bought grain, salt, coffee, sugar, alcohol, tobacco and other "city goods" to bring back with them. At local markets, bartering was more common. Firewood for fish, and grain for pails, for example. 

Long traditions 

Jekts were already being built in Gloppen in the early 1600s. Holvikejekta was also built here, but much later, in 1881. However, the construction method remained the same as in the 1600s: Clinker-builds, which means the strakes (planks) are fastened using a seam of rivets and metal plates. The inner planks are then placed and attached to the hull using wooden nails. 

A team of nine men spent about ten weeks building Holvikejekta, and the work was led by brothers Jakob (1840–1912) and Andreas (1846–1913) Apalset. The jekt was meant to hold 150 fathoms of firewood, meaning it had to be 20 meters long and 8.6 meters wide. The mast was 27.5 meters tall and 14 meters wide. The sail, which was red and sewn in Bergen, had a surface area of ​​270 m2. 

Building Holvikejekta cost 3,200 NOK, with the sail and rigging adding another 600 NOK. As was the tradition in Nordfjord, the jekt was built, used and financed as a joint venture between several farms. The owners of Holvikejekta were Abrahamsbruket in Holvika, Jens-Olabruket in Austrheim, Martinbruket in Andenes, and Røssbruket in Eide. 

Nearly all farms were part of a jekt venture, and they transported the goods themselves. The characteristic feature of the jekt trade here was that all profits came from the goods themselves, not the moving of them. Only the jekt skipper, commonly called «styremannen», was hired for each trip. 

The Nordfjord firewood jekts were somewhat larger than those in Sunnfjord and Sogn, and Holvikejekta was supposedly the largest. Perhaps her size was due to being built as late as 1881 – a time of increased competition from faster moving steamboats. 

A new era awaits 

The jekts remained competitive for a while, because they could carry higher quantities of bulk goods than steamboats. But there were gradually fewer and fewer jekts in operation. Some were rebuilt and fitted with engines, while others were dismantled. 

In 1907, the owners wanted to sell Holvikejekta, as they could no longer sail themselves and it had become difficult to find a crew. That same year, the Nordfjord History Society was founded, and already at the first board meeting, a possible purchase of Holvikejekta was discussed. The purchase was completed in 1909, with the Society paying 200 NOK for the jekt. Three years passed before they could afford the boathouse, which cost them another 400 NOK. The land on which the jekt was stored was separated from the Austrheim farm, allowing the Gloppen municipality to purchase the land. When the Nordfjord Museum of Cultural History was founded in 1915, the museum was gifted both the jekt and the land. 

After 117 years of rest, Holvikejekta was once again on the move. On 4. October 2023 it was moved, not by the traditional crew of 50 men, but by a truck using a cable, as well as a crew of six from the Hardanger Maritime Centre. Even in modern times, it was a significant event for the local community, attracting spectators both on site and via live stream. 

Ground surveys in the fall of 2023 showed that ground conditions on the site were unstable. The solution was to pre-stress the area. The location of the building also had to be moved up a few meters from the most unstable areas by the shore, but this did not have major consequences for the project itself. 

1,400 square meters were covered with 5,000 tons of material, left to sit for two months. The purpose was to provoke ground settling, that is, to apply pressure to the substrate so that it stabilised. This was checked every week using a total station, which measured with millimetre precision how much the substrate settled. The final result was 31 millimetres, which was well within the requirement, and the material was then removed. 

On 13. May 2024, the municipality issued the necessary permits, and work could begin. Veidekke is the contractor, Ola Sendstad is the architect, and Øyvind Tåsåsen is the Museums in Sogn og Fjordane project manager. 

In June, the foundation took shape, and an intensive period of concrete work began. In August, the wooden core arose, with stairs and an elevator, like a tower here at Øyrane. When October arrived, the roof and walls were in place. 

I think about the number of people who have worked to preserve the jekt, literally for more than 100 years. Now it’s finally happening.