Norman and Margret Ostrom
Norm and Margret Ostrom are long-time Prince Rupert residents.
They spoke with Sparrow Taranov on January 24, 2006.
The Arne A.
Norman: Very few people know about it, but we
used to have a boat-building yard right across the harbour in Salt Lake. But it
was individually owned - so one fellow, Axel Anderson, his wife and son were
there. They built three boats as far as I know. The other two boats I think had
met their demise at some point or other and they weren't around, when I came to
Rupert. This was the biggest boat that he built. It took him five years to
build it.
His wife, they both worked together on these boats. That boat
was built special. It was going to be for his son. Of course, being Norwegian,
it would be for fishing hey? They went out fishing all right - they fished
halibut and put a few years in. Their son ended up... he didn't think he liked
fishing. So anyway, they switched over from halibut fishing. Then they went
trolling. They fished on the inside waters down around Aristazabel and Banks
Island and that area mostly. Then after a while they - well they were getting
up in years - and that was all there was to it. So the boat came up for sale. I
think they were kind of a little discouraged in a way, because the boat was
built for their son and extra special care was taken with it, in building that
boat.
The way they put it together was a masterpiece actually. The
boat was 43 feet 6 inches long, almost 44 feet, that's a big boat in those
days. It was a pretty good size. I was around 24 years old and I sort of wanted
a boat. I thought, heck I've been driving boats all my life... grew up on the
salt chuck basically. Gee, that boat looked pretty good to me. And there were
two other guys after that boat hey? Anyway, I beat them because Axel Anderson
must have took a liking to me, and I got the boat. I paid big money for it - in
those days - too. It was about $10,000. That was big money in those days. You
think back now and that's nothing.
Margret: First time I went down on it his wife
was sitting in a rocking chair by the stove, rocking and knitting down in the
foc's'l. A rocking chair on a fishing boat!
Norman: It was down below. The galley was down
below and the sleeping quarters were down below. It was a pretty big area down
there. It was really something to see, his wife in there rocking away. So when
I started fishing the boat... let's see, it would be in 1958 when I approached
them to see if I could buy the boat. 1958, in August. And I've still got the
boat today. Pretty soon, 2 more years, it'll be 50 years that I've had that
boat. Not too many guys have had a boat for 50 years.
I like to keep my boat the way it is though - original. It's
just about as original as when I bought it. The galley's down below. How many
boats got a galley down in the foc's'l nowadays? Very, very few.
So when you go aboard my boat, you go back into history. You go
down into the engine room, and you go down into the foc's'l and you go down and
see where the table is and how everything is set up. It's all down there. And
everything is quite compact. With the table that is folded down, when it gets
rough water, the table gets folded up and it keeps all the goodies on those
shelves.
But my boat, when I got it, it didn't have basically very much
on it. There wasn't even a sounder on it. I had to put a sounder on it. It ran
off a little electric motor. Get out there fishing and, geez, the electric
motor packed up - and it provided power to the sounder. Now, here I am, like
the other guys, I've got no sounder hey. But I know how to get around without a
sounder.
Margret: He knows the territory.
Norman: I've got my skippers ticket too. Which
I got 45 years ago, and that kind of helped me out. But anyway, it didn't take
me long to get a spare motor for that. So if one burned out, I've got a spare.
So we had that for a few years. Then we upgraded everything and put in an
automatic pilot and steering. Boy that was a big help, to not have to steer by
hand all the time.
Margret: Yeah, and we had a gas engine to start
with too.
Norman: Yeah, when I first got the boat it had
a Nordberg gas engine in it. So you had to deal with gas. And gas can be a
little dangerous if you are careless. I had that for quite a few years - wore
out two gas engines. The first one was getting a little old anyways, but the
second one was a reconditioned Chrysler. Then after that I put a Jimmy diesel
in there and there is absolutely no problem there. They are a machine that is
very dependable hey. Yeah, so I've been pretty lucky. I've never had to get
towed in from the fishing grounds at all. Pretty lucky that way. I've actually
been pretty darn lucky over the years.
So getting back to Salt Lake there, where the boat was built.
They had quite a big boat house there, that thing was actually quite huge. Well
it had to be pretty huge in order to fit this almost 44 foot boat in it.
Another thing too, that should be imagined, is that the lumber that they put
into these boats is why everything is so good today. The main reason is because
of the lumber that they used. They used the old growth lumber, the old virgin
forests; I guess you might call it. They cut those trees down and they sawed
them and then they planed them. They knew what they were going to do with that
wood and they had it all put away, stashed up in the loft. They put it up there
to dry for a period of years. That way, that wood was seasoned. It was the best
of wood. They used red cedar, yellow cedar and fir. That is what the boat is
made of, those three woods. Hemlock and spruce you don't use on a wood boat -
those types of wood do not stand up to any harsh treatment at all. They rot
fast. But cedar and yellow cedar... The yellow cedar that is on my boat I
really marvel at. The stanchions all the way around the boat, they are all
yellow cedar, and if you look at it today... after, well since 1948... and it's
just like brand new. It's unbelievable.
Margret: And all your pen boards are the
original pen boards too.
Norman: Yeah, I got yellow cedar pen boards in
the boat. They are over 50 years old, pretty close to 60 years old. That's
unheard of, isn't it. That goes to show you how good yellow cedar is. Now those
are pen boards. Most people, they chop up the pen boards. They get somebody
down there chopping ice, and then they hit the wood and they are chopping into
the wood. I didn't let that happen on my boat. Those pen boards... I treat them
just like a good piece of wood, like a chunk of gold almost. I take pride in
them. And so those pen boards are just like brand new. Unbelievable. The only
reason that is, is because I look after them. So, I am pretty proud of my boat
anyway. When you can say that it is in just as good shape as when I bought it.
I think Axel Anderson would be quite happy about that.
Maintaining Wooden Boats
Sparrow: You've had to have put an awful lot of
upkeep into the Arne A., considering it looks in such good condition.
Norman: That's why I kind of refer to it as my
first wife! I married a boat in 1958 and I married Margret, here, in 1959. And
I've still got both. A boat is like a marriage, because if you don't look after
things properly, you will not have them for long.
Anyway, you've really got to be into looking after things
properly and keep things up. Anything that needs repairing is done and if you
don't do that... These boats up here in this part of the world, where we get a
lot of rain and stuff like that... If you've got a leaky deck for example, and
you don't really do anything much about it, it wouldn't take too many years
before you end up with some rot. What you do is when you've got a leak in the
boat, you fix it, and do it properly. So if you do all these things, whenever
you see something happening, you fix it.
In some years, if you get a bad summer, you can't get the work
done. Once in a while we do get a really bad year. Then when you get a good
year, make sure you take advantage of the weather. Because when is the next
time you are going to be doing - painting your decks and stuff like that. One
thing we've found out for maintenance on the boat is to use that Cetol oil. It
is really good. Normally we would paint the hull white and the decks grey, or
whatever. Well, we've sort of done away with that now and we use oil. We find
it a lot easier to maintain a boat. In my 48 years I've had the boat, I never
had an accident with the boat. One of the very few that never had an
accident.
You know, the boat I figure is in just as good shape now as when
I bought it. But I've spent a lot of time on the boat. There isn't a day that
goes by that I don't go down to the boat to do some little thing. It doesn't
have to be much. I'll drink coffee, have cookies and stuff like that, but I
also try to do one thing. Just one thing a day, you know, when I am down there.
And I always tell the guys down there, 'Come on, you guys should get going on
your boats. You do one thing a day on your boat and in thirty days, you have
done thirty things.'
In the olden days, we used to go and get 2 or 3 guys together
and do somebody else's boat. Then they come over. Next day or two you go up on
the ways, and they come over and help you. So everybody kind of helped each
other. Those were the early days. Now as we are getting older and all that, we
just take our boat down to McLean's ship yard and say 'Hey, you guys, look
after it - you know what to do.' So we just stand by and let them go at it. I
guess after so many years we are entitled to a little bit of relaxation.
So that was another point that should be mentioned: taking the
boat out of the water to make sure everything is good. You don't want to get
any of these sea-worms into your boat. There might be a little bruise there,
and if you don't do anything about it then a little worm gets in there. You
want to be really careful, because then a few more get in there and you might
have to redo a plank. You know how it goes. It's maintenance.
Around the stern there - there's a couple times boats come up
behind me and start talking to me. They come to talk about how much fish. I got
bumped a couple times out there. It's a timbered stern, it's above the deck
though, so that's easy to fix. So that is basically the only real repair job
I've ever done on it.
Margret: And the wood you used on the repair,
tell them that. It came from a whaling station at Rose Harbour, on the Queen
Charlottes.
Norman: Oh yeah. The wood was a little out of
the ordinary. The timbered stern from the deck up is all treated in whale oil.
It is probably from 100 years ago, close to 100 years ago. It came from the
vats that they put the whale oil in, and this wood got saturated with whale oil
and it is completely 100% preserved. But that's a different story. So it's
really good wood that went in and it could be California Redwood possibly, but
we are not one hundred percent sure on that.
Sparrow: That section of the boat will live for
another couple hundred years.
Norman: Well, as long as you look after it. A
boat's life, well, it depends on how you look after things, hey? So whoever
buys the boat after I sell it, they better look after it. It would be kind of
sad to see someone who buys the boat after I retire and not look after it. It
would really hurt because it is my pride and joy, in one way. It is something
that I have had over my main life - not too many guys can say that. They buy 2,
3 and 4 boats in their fishing time hey? They kind of wear them out, and things
are not so good so they go and buy another one, then pretty soon that boat's
not so good because you haven't maintained it and then they go buy another one.
That's not really the way to do it. You've got to take pride in what you are
doing.
Margret: We've had a few close calls out there,
haven't we?
Norman: Oh, yeah. In 48 years you are bound to
get caught 3 or 4 times. What pulled me through - I guess I would have drowned
years ago - I had a good boat underneath me. Made a big difference. One time, I
was caught in tiderips by Cape St. James. You just wouldn't believe how a nice
day turned into a real horror. The boat ended up right over on its side - came
up on a sharp wave. It came right up on top, you have to visualize it... and
then it fell over. No water on that one side of the boat, it just fell over
flat. Then after a while it sort of came back up again. Good old boat did its
thing! That was one of the worse things I had ever gotten in. But that is what
I want to point out - if you've got a good boat under your feet and you've kept
everything well maintained, you'll make it through.
