In my research an unnerving undertone has started to surface. I need to ensure I keep it in the context of the period of history and avoid trying to find justification as we naturally do as humans when something sits uncomfortable with us - “it was a different period of time”, “it was a different country”, “I would have done it differently” etc etc, but ultimately although there are positive sides to the Salmon Lords exploration of Norway and the Norwegian rivers, there is also an undercurrent of ecological impact.
Ok to start with the positives - The Salmon Lords brought income to the interior of Norway, which at the end of 18th century was a very rural farming focused industry. There where a few logging operations, tin mines of various degrees, but ultimately the interior of Norway was poor and reliant on farming in the valleys. In several books and documents I have read there, is very much a reliance of the harvest and when this failed ultimately the community suffered, this was highlighted by William Bilton on several occasions, as the frost destroyed the crops, so the harvest failed. So the Salmon Lords supplement of salmon, as it was customary to give surpluses of the catch to the village or land owner, was welcome (although from accounts it seems later anglers did not follow such a custom and where frond upon).
It also true, that the Salmon Lords rented land, built houses, maintained stretches of rivers, hired boatmen increased the quality of the inn’s and hotels, hired wagons and horses, as they travel around the country, you could argue this speed up the development of roads to connect regions, although the wealthier hired steam boat passages and traveled to their summer lodging. So you can make the assumption when looking at any developing region, that an infrastructure of support grows up around the finically dependent exercise and so increasing the prosperity of the community. The Salmon Lords became a business to the locals, where they hired houses or bought houses and land which need to be maintained, in the same nature as they would do in England (maids, cleaners, gardeners, boatmen etc.), we naturally project our own culture on others, and the English, being the major culprits of this throughout the 18th century.
Additionally through research parallel to the development of salmon fishing there was a boom in “hunting” or field sports, it appears anything was fair game, bears, reindeer, deer, ducks etc. and no doubt this attraction of “sport” and trophy hunting lead to the expansion of the industry and the support network that goes with it, Inns, horses, guides etc.
There is a positive side of the story, being the impact on local communities, but reading through the documents and books, the underlining tone is the start of the demise of salmon stocks, which at the time had no regulation (although in Charles Thomas-Stanford’s book “A River of Norway” published in 1903 there is the first mention of a fishery officer”). To set the context Norway was an unexplored ecologically rich and a biodiverse land, with high mountain ranges, snow covered glaciers, dense pine forest, deep rolling valleys and fjords, pure clear rivers and rich fishing grounds. The demise of the salmon started from I believe was the impact of the Salmon Lords.
Area one - The eduction of Norwegians in fly fishing as a leisure sport - now this is not a negative thing, do not get me wrong as I appreciate all brothers of the rod, but up until the introduction of fly fishing for salmon by the Salmon Lords, (I can not find any document that talks about leisure fishing as a past time for Norwegians prior to the Salmon Lords). Salmon where netted both in the rivers and fjords which no doubt had some impact, but a lot of Norwegians picked up the sport of fly fishing from observing the Salmon Lords, this lead to a growth interest and ultimately the overcrowding of rivers and the assumption along with the salmon lords the removal of more salmon than the system could support. (although unsupported as I can’t find records of Norwegian catches, but if they are anything in the numbers of the Salmon Lords then you can draw the conclusion there was a considerable impact).
Two summers in Norway volume 2 1840 - William Bilton - “But still more than this many of the natives had taken up angling in the English method"
Area two - The salmon lords catches, at the time no salmon where released back into the rivers everything that was caught was killed and kept. Looking through the documents and numbers you start to realise what an impact the Salmon Lords must have had, by removing the biggest and strongest fish from the river you aroid the breeding stock, sure you can argue there where enough salmon, but I believe there was still a natural balance, and this decline in stocks lead to the decline in interest of the Salmon Lords at the beginning of the 19th century. If I take several references you can start to see the impact in some of the numbers.
A River of Norway - 1903 - Chalres Thomas Stanford - “two rods in June and July 150 Salmon and as many grilse. The heaviest we have killed scaled 32Ib. The average weight of salmon is 13 1/4 lb of grilse 3 5/8 lb. These modest figures do though they do not compete with bags made on some Norwegian waters”
Looking at this it is 2525 Ibs (1.4 tonnes) of salmon and grilse, by 2 Rods in 2 months. Taking a snap shot of William Biltons references he also took a considerable weight of fish, 137Ib 11 fish and 220 Ib 12 fish in the course of 2 days on the Namsen, these are then salmon of 20-30lb averages, assuming to be strong breeding males and females. This depletion of the stocks must have had a significant impact.
Again you can argue there are enough fish in the river, the poundage was not accurate, there is a degree of error, but what you can not deny is over a period of time with a high number of anglers taking out the prime breeding stock over a 50-60 year period you would se a significant impact on the ecosystem, even before industrial netting and the terrible impact of fish farms on natural stocks.
William Bilton “As I came to the Namsen for the express purpose of killing heavy fish” This quote sits uncomfortably for a modern angler where the world “killing” should be replaced with “catching”.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and we can look back and judge the impact of past generations, but we must learn from their mistakes and hope that in the future generations do not look back at our generation with the same filter and say we should have protected the salmon, we need to protect the environment and as bothers of the rod it is our duty to do this.
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