The New Fish: The Global History of Salmon Farming

By Simen Saetre and Kjetil Ostli

Eat more fish, the doctors say. But is the salmon you are consuming really healthy? 

In the early 1970s, a group of scientists researched how to make more food for the growing population of the world. They looked to the sea. They sampled genes from salmon in 41 Norwegian and Swedish rivers and designed a new salmon that was fatter and faster growing. This was considered an amazing innovation and was the beginning of a new industry: salmon farming.

The industry spread from coastal Norway to Scotland, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Chile, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the United States. Business boomed, jobs were created, and a new type of food, the farmed salmon, spread around the globe. People everywhere bought and enjoyed the abundant fish: grilled, poached, roasted, and as sushi and sashimi. They were grateful for this delicious, affordable protein. 

But at what cost? 

We now know that there were unintended consequences: some of these new fish escaped, competing for sustenance with other fish in the sea. The new fish spread diseases, salmon louse swarmed, and wild salmon stocks dwindles.  

In a prizewinning five-year investigation, authors Simen Sætre and Kjetil Østli took an in-depth look at Norway’s role in the global salmon industry and, for the first time, produced a comprehensive evaluation of the detrimental effects of salmon farming. From lice to escapees, from concentrating the waste of sea pens in the fjords through which wild salmon swim to their natal streams to the fact that salmon farming causes a net reduction of protein reaped from the ocean, the results don’t look good. Recent victories, such as the banning of net-pen fish farms in the waters of Washington State, are an indication that we are awakening to the environmental price of engineered fish.

It is said that we will continue to make the same mistakes unless we understand them. The New Fish combines nature writing from Norwegian fjords, the coast of Canada, Icelandic landscapes and the far south of Chile with character-driven literary non-fiction and classic muckraking. The authors started with this question: What happens when you create a new animal and place it in the sea? This book will tell you the answer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patagonia
• Release date: Jul 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781952338151

Simen Saetre

Simen Sætre (b. 1974) is an investigative reporter who has been published in many languages. He has written six books, on themes including the international chocolate industry, oil states, and a spy in the Norwegian army. His thought-provoking books have been acclaimed and nominated for prizes. 

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Mankind Conquers the World and Sets Its Sights on the Fish

Why did we domesticate fish? Or rather, why didn’t we do it sooner? Evolution gave us toes to stand with, bodies to walk upright with, fingers to grip and create with, and teeth to eat with. We were able to hunt across long distances, tracking our prey until it collapsed and lay trembling before us.

We mastered fire, and that fire allowed us to cook, stay warm, and keep predators at bay. We spent less time chewing and more time thinking. Fat and nutrition from meat allowed us, high on energy, to take a new leap. Our bodies changed, and our brains grew larger. More capacity for thought enabled us to plan. We learned to group together and work in teams. Some of us gathered nuts and berries and looked after children, some made clothes out of hides and tinkered with arrowheads, and some kept watch or hunted. Our ancestors, unlike the animals around them, were able to accumulate knowledge and, in the warmth of the fire, share it. No need to reinvent the wheel. And so, as biologist E. O. Wilson puts it, The stage was now set for the biggest-brained of African primates to make the truly defining leap to their ultimate potential.

When Homo sapiens bid farewell to its distant and close relatives—chimpanzees and baboons, Homo floresiensis, and Homo erectus—our tools were unrivaled. We spread across the globe. We were such skilled hunters that we wiped out the large animals that grazed where we roamed, such as the mastodon, the mammoth, and the Irish elk. Our relatives, the Neanderthals, are gone now, too.

Then something strange happened. Our ancestors thought, Wow, it’s so lovely here! Should we stay? We grew less inclined to roam forests and valleys, and in the end, we stopped. Ten thousand years ago, many of us abandoned the nomadic hunter-gatherer way of life. We settled in humid and fertile areas. We established tribes, then villages, towns, and states. We got chiefs, laws, and rules—and looked upon nature through new eyes. Nature was now something we could exploit, conquer, plow, transform, cultivate. We had once searched for food; now, we started to make and create food. The Neolithic Revolution was underway, the first of the agricultural revolutions. We didn’t necessarily live longer or get stronger; some research even suggests we lived shorter lives and were smaller in stature, but we multiplied. Oh, how we multiplied.

What was the reason for this change? One theory is that as we became more numerous and there were fewer large animals to hunt, farming became more reliable. But if we assume everything is about staying alive, we overlook something crucial about our species: the curiosity, the urge to create, the drive to take our fate into our own hands. We tamed and domesticated; we tried and failed. We cultivated wild wheat, rice, barley, lentils, peas, and potatoes. We caught animals, and instead of eating them straight away, we kept them as livestock.

We caught the horse, a wild little creature from the grasslands, and bred it to be big enough to carry and pull loads. We tamed huge beasts of the field, the aurochs. We caught jungle fowl and kept them for eggs and cockfights. We transformed the wild boar into a serene creature that provided plenty of meat, and we loved its bacon. New plants were harvested, more animals domesticated and made to work for us. Not only the horse and the cow but also the cat, the guinea pig, the donkey, the mallard, the water buffalo, the camel, the turkey, the honeybee, the llama, the silkworm, the pigeon, the goose, the yak, the elephant.

When our forefathers and foremothers started domesticating and breeding, they didn’t know how it would catch on. Today, humans and livestock make up 96 percent of mammals. Wild animals? There are few of them left.

A number of changes take place in animals that we domesticate. Charles Darwin ruminated on this. Why do domesticated animals have so much in common, regardless of species?

Their faces change shape. They develop floppy ears, smaller teeth, bigger stomachs, and are less muscular than their wild ancestors. They rely on their mothers longer. Their brains are smaller compared to those of their wild counterparts.

This is referred to as domestication syndrome. Perhaps it’s only logical. The aim of domestication is to change animals’ behavior and body, breeding them into what we need. Homo sapiens was fast becoming "Homo deus," a godlike species ruling over nature and animals.

We took a leap that distanced us from tens of thousands of years of history and staked out a new path—but without a map. Major changes always have consequences, some visible in the short term, others invisible until they’re upon us. The best of intentions can do irreparable damage.

We made steady improvements, the invention of more machines kicking off the Industrial Revolution. As we grew numerous and word of famine spread, we were prompted to come up with new ideas. Another revolution came, known as the Green Revolution. How could we produce more food? The Green Revolution built on the Industrial Revolution. Machines were put to work in fields, fertilizers made plants grow quickly, chemicals allowed us to combat pests and fungi. Using principles from factories, we bred animals for the mass production of meat. We maximized crops and made animals grow fast, all with idealism and fervor.

Unease, however, brewed in the shadows. In her book Animal Machines, published in 1964, British animal activist Ruth Harrison criticized industrial livestock production and animal factories. In her book Silent Spring, published in 1962, American marine biologist Rachel Carson warned of the dangers of chemical insecticides. The poison infected not only pests but also other animals and species—including humans. Many insecticides remain in the environment for years. Put simply, they are environmental toxins.

A growing movement of activists thought that our way of living would have consequences. We prospered while rendering the planet almost unlivable for other creatures. We polluted the atmosphere and depleted the seas.

According to biologist E. O. Wilson, we are a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life. He writes that today’s world is a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology, and that except for behaving like apes much of the time and suffering genetically limited life spans, we are godlike.

From this perspective, our intelligence and urge to create are also dangerous. This concept is explored in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. In these works, the human brain creates things that are impressive but frightening. In Goethe’s case, ambitious plans upset the balance of nature and cause a tragedy of development. For Shelley, the new creation literally becomes a monster.

Even in the face of these warnings, some enterprising people remain optimistic. Our intelligence has gotten us this far, now it can save us. Problems are solved with new research and smart innovation. If it gets too warm, we’ll develop technology to stop it. If the atmosphere fills with carbon dioxide, we’ll trap and purify it. If we start running out of wild animals to eat, we’ll breed more livestock. What’s that? Fewer fish in the sea? Then we’ll farm more of them.

Yes, fish. Shouldn’t they be domesticated, too?

Some say it started with fish stranded in pools when rivers dried up. Others talk about fish that swam inland at high tide and remained in lagoons. Or did it start with Chinese rulers who wanted fish all year, prompting servants to breed carp in ponds around the palaces? In Europe, experiments with trout were promising. Hatcheries were established, and fish were released into rivers and lakes.

People could see the money in it. And which fish would people pay the most for? Salmon!

Yes, salmon, the king among fish, climbing waterfalls and rapids. Beautiful, wild, and shimmering, alluringly red on the inside, full of goodness and mystery. A superior fish for festive occasions and fancy restaurants.

Imagine being its master. Humans were already masters of the cow, the sheep, the pig, the horse, the chicken, the cat, the llama, the dog … but the salmon? Some tried in the 1950s, in tidal straits, and with floating nets. They kept the fish trapped in bays and coves, but it was wild and scared.

Why does something happen? Does it start with one innovator? An environment, a sequence of events?

We started to investigate fish farming in 2016. We were tipped off to the fact that many salmon researchers felt permanently under scrutiny. We made some calls and were surprised. I don’t want to talk about it. It’ll ruin my vacation, one researcher said. Another stopped answering the phone. A third said, If you have anything negative to share about salmon, you need to brace yourself. A fourth said, You don’t know what I’m getting at? This is politics. We live in a seafood nation. These were researchers who had worked on salmon or fish farming projects only to get into conflicts and suffer as a result. They were afraid of coming across as negative, and of not being believed. Some had left the field. This made an impression on us. Researchers are supposed to purvey knowledge and seek the truth. It’s a bad sign for society when they don’t dare speak openly.

Norway as a seafood nation seemed to us, at least back then, to be a place of unsolved mysteries and bottomless controversies. A place where money talked, dual roles were par for the course, and critics were branded activists. This was a realm of lawyers with unknown clients attacking research institutes, and lobbyists writing secret emails to government ministers. Salmon farming was a frontier.

In only a few decades, an industry had emerged that made people rich. According to Forbes, three of the world’s richest people under the age of thirty were salmon heirs, and new seafood billionaires infiltrated the lists of the wealthiest individuals on the planet. They were hailed by the authorities, celebrated by the industry media, and praised by politicians with visions of the bright future of salmon farming. They called it the salmon dream. It was applauded in industry-sponsored books and by governmental bodies, shrouded in claims of sustainability, climate friendliness, and feeding the world.

A fjord in the Lofoten archipelago in winter. Sámi ancestral lands, Norway. FRANCKREPORTER / ISTOCK

This salmon dream gained momentum in producing countries such as Chile, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and our native Norway, but the wealth and power came at a cost. Defenseless salmon in pens were bred to grow so quickly that their hearts ruptured. Wrasse, which were supposed to eat lice off the salmon, died on the job. Shrimp, lobster, and other fish in the fjord environment, like the wild salmon themselves, are now considered to be near threatened—as are researchers seeking knowledge that might curb growth. One side had power, money, and the authorities’ blessing, the other had none of these things.

As we worked, we discovered that the salmon dream was launched with little foresight. Decisions were made in haste to solve problems as they arose. The consequences were only seen later, and these caused more problems. We started to realize that the story of farmed salmon was perhaps not a dream but rather a chain of unintended consequences.

If you put a new animal in a fjord, you set something in motion. And what happens then?

That was our question. The answer is in this book.

An Atlantic salmon farm sits just off Øksfjord, Sámi ancestral lands, Norway. ROBERTO MOIOLA

CHAPTER 1

The New Fish Comes into Being

We park in a quiet street lined with small houses close to the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in the village of Ås.

A sprightly ninety-one-year-old in a checked shirt and a gray cardigan meets us at the door. His eyes are sharp, his tongue quick. The health and inquisitiveness of this man are so robust that he didn’t retire until he turned eighty-eight. Two old clogs sit on the doorstep, and Trygve Gjedrem tells us that he carved them himself.

Remember that name. Trygve Gjedrem made history. If you drive along the coast and see a fish farm, know that this man is a progenitor of billions of salmon.

At first, Gjedrem doesn’t want to talk about himself. He wants to talk about his old mentor.

Harald Skjervold was his name. ‘This is going to be big!’ he said when he saw what the salmon-farming pioneers were up to. ‘These people need help! They can’t control wild animals,’ he said. ‘Wild animals aren’t made to be kept in a net!’

He lifts his arms in an expression of admiration.

What a guy! What a mind!

We’re transported back to the 1960s before we’ve even had a chance to sit down. A small company, Mowi, had started feeding salmon in small, sheltered coves. Two fishermen, Sivert and Ove Grøntvedt, had cobbled together a seine net and put salmon in the sea. The rumor spread along the coast of Norway. If Sivert and Ove could do it, so could others.

But the salmon were terrified, and Skjervold said to me, ‘This is a job for us. We need to help build this industry.’

That was how Trygve Gjedrem became part of this story.

He was supposed to be a sheep farmer. His family kept sheep, he wrote his thesis on sheep, he was bent on dedicating his life to sheep. Then, during a stay in the United States in the 1960s, he met Jay Laurence Lush, a renowned researcher and world leader in genetics, regarded by some as the father of scientific animal breeding. He was a driving force behind the Green Revolution.

A wave of formidable engineering and ideas about food production swept the world, and agricultural student Gjedrem breathed the spirit of the age as he immersed himself in breeding sheep for better wool. Then Harald Skjervold, professor at the Agricultural University of Norway, tapped the promising student on the shoulder and told him, We need to go to the coast. Skjervold saw that the principles of animal breeding could be applied to salmon.

Gjedrem was skeptical.

I don’t know anything about salmon, Gjedrem told him.

None of us do, the professor replied.

Skjervold, however, was a visionary—the sort of person who thinks big and mesmerizes others. He went to Oslo and convinced the minister of agriculture of his ideas for the salmon. Money was allocated, and Skjervold’s disciples were sent across the country with a mandate: Go along the coast and find somewhere for a research station! They found the village of Sunndalsøra.

Gjedrem was excited but uncertain. He went home to see his father, the sheep farmer.

Work with salmon? his father said. How?

Gjedrem explained, but his father wore a grave expression and told him, Trygve, this won’t end well. Gjedrem’s brother stood silent in the background.

Nevertheless, Gjedrem defied his father and abandoned sheep for salmon.

And then we threw ourselves right in at the deep end! Gjedrem says, clapping his hands.

Picture a factory floor with 216 large plastic tubs arranged in rows. The water gurgles as small, dark creatures swim beneath the surface. The smell of the feed, minced fish offal, permeates clothing. Researchers walk around with clipboards, and Gjedrem oversees everything.

He had fertilized salmon roe (eggs) sent in mason jars and plastic containers from the best salmon rivers in the country. From the Vosso, known for big salmon able to swim through floods and rapids. From the Namsen, a river that attracts anglers from all over Europe. From the Alta, where the king of Norway fishes. Soon, young salmon from the Målselva, the Nidelva, the Lærdal, the Etne, the Surna, the Rauma, and the Gaula also swam around in the tubs. Gjedrem wasn’t satisfied until he had roe from forty Norwegian rivers and one Swedish river.

Each fish was adapted to its river. Some came from long rivers and had fat reserves to help them survive migration. Others came from short rivers in the far north and grew quickly, so that they could spawn during the short summer.

It was imprinted on each fish that they should live in the river until they grew large enough to seek out saltwater and roam the ocean for years. It baffles us humans that they can find their way back to the same river where they hatched by using their sense of smell. Now, however, they were swimming around in tubs at the research station and being measured and recorded.

It was scary in the beginning, Gjedrem recalls.

When he opened the door to the factory floor, the fish panicked and tried to hide, like they would in the river. Their new life was stressful.

Fish would vanish for unknown reasons. The disappearances were a mystery—until Gjedrem worked it out.

I spotted what looked like a fry with two tails. One fish was down the throat of another. They were cannibalizing each other.

Salmon roe are poured into an incubator at a fish hatchery. ROLAND HEMMI

How do you domesticate a wild animal?

Gjedrem sits with his best ear toward us. He goes to get a hearing aid and picks up where he left off.

After three generations, they stopped eating each other, he explains. Some fish coped better in captivity.

The salmon from the Namsen were the best, but we didn’t only use them. We used [roe from] several rivers in the salmon we presented to the farmers. It was a select fish, bred for growth and survival.

The genes mixed and the salmon changed.

To find the best salmon, researchers cooperated with farmers. They supplied smolts (young salmon ready to migrate from river to sea) to one of the pioneers, Sivert Grøntvedt.

Sivert came to see us one day at the research station. He was grave. ‘Trygve,’ he said. ‘This fish is different.’ ‘Oh?’ I asked. ‘This fish is calmer. And it grows faster.’ Sivert had seen it with his own eyes. And after others heard that, they wanted to try, too.

It was a breakthrough.

It was clear to see. This salmon was tamer. It was starting to behave like livestock.

Gjedrem goes to get books and yellowed documents. He flips through pages, and points at graphs.

The first generation were wild. Then we chose individuals for breeding based on growth.

Gjedrem lowers his voice.

And then we achieved growth of 15 percent!

He slaps the table so hard that the coffee cups rattle.

Fifteen percent in one generation! We were overjoyed.

He shows us a publication entitled Salmon Farming (Fish as Livestock), which describes his experiments.

All breeding aims to change a group of animals, it says. The basis of everything is the genes, and the aim is to exploit their potential.

This is done through selection. If you breed animals that are closely related, this is called inbreeding. Then the fish become more similar but may also become less vigorous.

If you cross animals from the same population that are not related, you obtain purebreds, and heterosis is achieved. That means you get a new animal that is better than both its parents—two plus two becomes five. Imagine the researchers’ joy when this happens. How they beam at their graphs and diagrams.

What if you take the experiments further? Cross salmon with trout? Trout with Arctic char?

That would be interspecies breeding. This, too, was tested at the research station.

Strange fish swam around in the tubs. Arctic char, mountain trout, sea trout, and salmon in all combinations. They were also crossed with pink salmon, or humpback salmon, but the offspring died.

The mixture of salmon and Arctic char was promising. This fish was bigger than both its parents by the time it was three years old. The problem was the color, which was so strange that the researchers imagined the fish would be difficult to sell.

In 1975, the researchers discovered dead fish covered in a layer of slime. Their skin was bluish, with some afflicted by a fungus. Parasites swarmed their skin, gills, and oral cavities, clinging on with hooks and suction cups. In pain, the fish rubbed themselves against the sides of the tubs. They were under attack from Gyrodactylus salaris, a parasite that had never been seen in Norway. The parasite soon spread to fifty Norwegian watercourses and rivers, and people speculated as to how it got there. There were murmurings about fries (young salmon) imported from Sweden, and so a new concept was introduced to the fish-farming nation: biosecurity, the danger of transporting biological material across national borders. It was a terrible time for our employees, Gjedrem writes in one of his books, but he prefers to talk about the successes, and one word in particular: growth.

Gjedrem leans forward and slaps the table again.

We selected for increased growth and survival in captivity. And what did we see? Clear results! Our salmon grew quicker and survived in farm conditions. This had a dramatic effect on the industry.

His eyes gleam as he relives their triumph.

New targets were set for breeding the best salmon possible. Resistance to disease. The right shape, the right amount of fat. Delayed puberty, so the salmon didn’t waste energy on mating. The right color for the meat: red.

Gjedrem leans back in his chair.

Did you love the fish?

I wouldn’t say that. It isn’t like a dog.

Christian literature can be found between Gjedrem’s books. He is a religious man.

What’s your take on not messing with God’s creation?

He seems surprised by the question.

If I can halve feed consumption and increase returns, breeding is positive. As far as I’m concerned, livestock breeding is the way forward for us.

So, it’s fine to play God?

If I were you, I’d ask questions about genetic engineering.

We ask him what he makes of the salmon industry today.

I’m impressed. No one could have predicted how it would grow, not even Skjervold. Just look at the coast! When you think about how new everything was in 1971, it really is a dream.

The breeding that started in 1971 is estimated to be worth 1.5 billion Norwegian kroner (US$147 million) per generation of salmon. An evaluation has established that the research at the station was world-class. Via a circuitous route, what started at the station became the company AquaGen, acquired by the EW Group, a multinational agribusiness known for its quick-growing chickens.

Trygve Gjedrem remained unknown outside of the salmon industry, but American author Paul Greenberg portrayed him as the father of farmed salmon.

The salmon he bred now swim in production facilities all over the world, grow twice as fast as wild salmon, and feed millions of sushi lovers. The latter is thanks to the pioneers who transformed Gjedrem’s life project into a global industry.

Breeding pioneer Ove Grøntvedt tends a net off of Hitra, Sámi ancestral lands, Norway. MAGNUS BERG

Ove Grøntvedt shows off a farmed salmon carcass, Hitra, Sámi ancestral lands, Norway. ARCHIVES/COASTAL MUSEUM IN SØR-TRØNDELAG

CHAPTER 2

The Pioneers Build an Industry

Three men set out in the winter of 1975 to map the new industry. They drove along the Norwegian coast in a converted bus that they called Aquarius and made note of the fish farms. On the bus, they had berths, an office, and a small laboratory. The expedition team consisted of oceanographer Olav Hansen and his assistant, Kåre Sandtorv, and secretary, Nils Riisnes.

When they saw a fish farm, they stopped the bus, walked to the closest house, and knocked on the door. They were met with curiosity. Who were they? Where had they been? What were the other fish farmers saying?

Between the lines of their report, entitled Report on the registration of fish farms in 1974 and 1975, the three emissaries painted a picture of people groping in the dark, of overall-wearing men in coves having a go and seeing what happened. There was a pervasive odor of seaweed, seawater, and fish guts. Homemade pens and simple seine nets, often haphazardly nailed together, floated in the water. The farmers could usually see them from their kitchen windows. They would go down first thing in the morning to check that everything was in order, and again once more before going to bed. They had jumped on the bandwagon, but they still knew so little.

They were raising an animal they didn’t understand. Fish died, afflicted by diseases without names. There’s no point calling the vet—she didn’t know what to suggest.

The three emissaries from the Aquarius noted an urgent need for education. The fish farmers had started without experience or training. Those who had worked with livestock had an advantage, but even they struggled.

The hygiene was the worst. The trio took samples from the water, checking the oxygen content, salinity, temperature, and seabed sediment. They noted that pens were set up too close to each other, or in water too shallow. Excrement and feed residue floated around, making the environment almost uninhabitable for the fish. No other form of food production in Norway today has such a glaring lack of rules for hygiene requirements, the report writers noted. There is a stench from rotting feed residue and scrap and equipment strewn around the farm area at several grow-out facilities.

They noted that feeding was a laborious task. The farmers bought batches of frozen capelin, sprats, and offal from pollock. This was ground up, and the salmon were fed by hand. If the capelin was rancid, the fish got sick. Many workers also sustained wrist injuries due to all the feeding. No branch of animal husbandry today would have a chance of survival with such primitive and labor-intensive feed processing and feeding techniques, they wrote.

Fish diseases spread. The emissaries estimated that 80 to 90 percent of farmed fish in Western Norway suffered from vibriosis. This bacterial disease causes the fish to lose its appetite and develop ulcers and abscesses. In some places, half the fish die before they are due to be slaughtered. And then there were the lice. It seems that keeping large concentrations of fish for several consecutive years in restricted environments significantly increases the likelihood of severe salmon louse attacks, the report writers noted. Desperate due to the lack of delousing treatments, farmers turned to formalin, a colorless liquid with a sharp smell. Others tried garlic. They threw it to the fish or added it to their feed. Onions hung around the pens, rotting and causing a foul stench.

Starting an industry from scratch precipitates a kind of selection. Only the most adaptable survive. Driven by a Protestant work ethic, the salmon farmers fought the forces of nature. Methods evolved quickly, with new research applied from one day to the next. The endeavor was fueled by indomitable hope. As the emissaries noted in the report they sent to the Directorate of Fisheries: Due to the relatively high price of salmon, interest in salmon has seen a significant increase in recent years. They thought that a better salmon and smarter marketing could stabilize the industry.

Some people pinpoint the birth of the salmon industry as May 28, 1970, when brothers Sivert and Ove Grøntvedt from Hitra put 16,000 young salmon smolts in the sea. If you look closer at this picture, however, cracks appear because behind those pens stands a forgotten district sheriff, Arne Ratchje. Is he the father of the salmon farming industry, then? No, because he got the sketches from another district sheriff, Ingar Holberg, who was keeping fish in tanks when a pump started smoking, putting the fish at risk. At the eleventh hour, he got hold of a seine net and transferred the fish to the sea. This worked, and he exchanged letters with Ratchje, who drew the pens in which the Grøntvedt brothers put the salmon bred by Trygve Gjedrem’s research station. So, is Holberg the real hero? No, because a well-tailored man in Bergen, Mr. Mowinckel, was already keeping salmon in secluded fjord arms. He gave his name to Mowi, which later became the world’s leading salmon producer, but he probably wasn’t the first. Who could forget the Vik brothers in Sykkylven? And what about those hipsters in Lovund? The truth is that no one did everything, but many did something.

Accounts from the pioneers suggest they were viewed as fools. This is ludicrous! Just nonsense! people said. Salmon farming wasn’t worth investing in. "We don’t