Author: Kristiina Maripuu
Between the people of the mainland and the people of the islands is a sea, both literally and figuratively. The sea adds a sense of mystery to the people of the islands, which is reflected in their traditions, everyday life, dreams, and beliefs – something or someone attracts them to the sea and keeps it in their thoughts. What is it that makes island life unique and special?
The majority of Estonians have probably heard the lines of the song (here translated) “Up and down, my hair blowing in the wind, I swing down from the edge of the sky, free as a bluebird.” This song is also a singalong favourite of the writer Eia Uus and her daughter Anna Maria. Performing it with the band Vägilased, the energetic chorus continues with the words “To fly here and there, love and joy filling my chest, only beauty keeping me in this world”, while two-year-old Anna Maria adds a clear and genuine island dimension: “Only bream keeping me in this world!” Two different things, but there is so much more to this parallel between beauty and the bream born from the child’s consciousness. Even if these aren’t the actual lyrics, a child always tells the truth.
The song is called “The Call of Gold,” but just as beauty became a bream, so gold can become a fish. For many, island life is precisely that – the call of fish. But why should thoughts revolve around fish at all, especially so much that a two-year-old island child perceives that fish can somehow give meaning to someone’s life in this world? Why do the fish apparently call to the island people and how can it bring such all-encompassing joy?
Marjen: It is all thanks to my grandfather
Marjen (62) grew up in a beach village, and when she sums up that time, she says that the dearest thing to her was her grandfather. You could count on him going out to sea to catch fish every day – it was his whole nature, it was in his soul. Whenever he came back from the sea, the young Marjen ran to hug him tightly. The desire to run into her grandfather’s arms probably came from the fact that Marjen’s grandmother was very afraid of the sea, and this fear was also transferred to her granddaughter’s heart – but it was not the sea that she learnt to fear, but the fact that something bad could happen to her grandfather. That is why it was always necessary to hold her grandfather very tightly when he returned from fishing. In retrospect, she doesn’t remember other children going to greet the fishing boat like that.
“Grandfather smelled of the sea and fish. Talking about it makes me feel like I’m five years old again. I can see even now how he wrinkled his nose to feel where the wind was blowing from, to know where to move the fishing nets,” say Marjen, cherishing the memory as she imitates her grandfather’s wrinkled nose.
One day her grandfather and two of his companions did not return for a while, and everyone was afraid that an accident had happened. However, when they happily arrived home hours later, it turned out that the beautiful day had prompted her grandfather to sail across the bay to visit his daughter, where they had a great time together. In the end, everything was fine, but it still remains in Marjen’s memory as the scariest day of her childhood.
Thinking of that time, Marjen does not remember a single day without fish to eat, and in her childhood, she considered eating fish a kind of food slavery from which she dreamed of becoming free from one day. Still, one cannot resist the call of fish, because right before her 50th birthday, Marjen bought herself a boat and started fishing herself. “I wanted to be like my dear grandfather and do what he loved so much. It is all thanks to my grandfather,” she says, with a warm smile on her face. “If I could go fishing every day, I would not do anything else. I remember from my childhood that women in other families did not go to the sea, but in ours, everyone except my grandmother did.” She does not think that a woman fishing is that unprecedented.
In Marjen’s world, the fish is the kind of symbol that holds memories and traditions. “While at sea, I have always thought to myself that when I meet my grandfather again one day, we will talk about fishing.”
Kalev: 600 kilometres is nothing!
Kalev (55) lives in central Estonia and, to tell the truth, nothing connected him to the sea: “I don’t like water at all and that’s why I don’t go swimming – I’m like a cat.” But everything changed a little more than ten years ago. His job briefly brought him together with an islander, Ärni, and although the work order was completed quickly, it became clear that the two of them had a good rapport. Once when I was in Hiiumaa with my friends, I had a spontaneous idea to visit Ärni – so I did just that! After that, Kalev continued to visit, and fishing became one of their common activities.
“I became interested in the sea, and now I go out to sea whenever possible. I also got a small boat licence.” Kalev describes with conviction how the sea and fishing attract him – as if someone is pushing him, but he does not know who.
Sure, you can buy fish in the market and in the store, but the one thing you cannot buy is the feeling. “It’s completely natural that you don’t catch a fish every time. Maybe you fail several times in a row, but then you catch something beautiful again – that alone is a bonus. If I didn’t get anything 20 times in a row, maybe I would calm down and stop going, but the fish keep you hooked. And that feeling of being on the water in a boat!” he continues, enthralled.
He often reaches the fishing waters of Saaremaa, and it is not uncommon for him to rearrange his work during the day in order to get out to sea in the evening. “I often feel that it is necessary to go now and then! It’s like a disease or an addiction – better, but just as powerful. Even now I’m itching to get out to sea and I keep checking the weather forecast. If the weather allows, I’ll be back at it in a couple of days! The 600 kilometres there and back is nothing!”
Joint fishing trips like this show that the fish help keep friendships alive and pave new paths. “I dream of an old age where 90% of the time I am at sea and then I spend the rest of the time in my small house.” Kalev has followed the call of the sea and the fish. He has already started on the construction of his island home.
Kätlin: You trust what comes
Kätlin (43), whose mother is from Muhu and father is from Saaremaa, has been living on Hiiumaa for 15 years now. Her husband, who is from Great Britain, is a passionate third-generation fisherman, and fishing has become a completely natural part of her days. Since there was no one else to go to sea in the small village by the sea, the two of them started to take out and retrieve the fishing nets together. “I really enjoy those early mornings when we go out on the boat to see if there’s anything in the net. Whether there are fish or not is not always so important, because we simply enjoy the activity,” Kätlin notes with satisfaction in her voice. “But if you see fish, of course that’s a thrill. We have a small boat, and if you can catch 50 kilos of flounder, it’s awesome!” Incidentally, Kätlin and her husband make handmade fish products from local fish, which are also available in stores in the capital, Tallinn, under the name Hõbekala.
Kätlin’s children accompany them out to sea, and according to their mother, this provides a good opportunity to experience real life – there is a love for nature, but also a general understanding of why one thing or another is done. “It’s important to care for the fish and respect it when you eat it,” she explains, adding how the children’s interest in fish and the sea life has deepened because of this. The family runs a guest house on the picturesque Kõpu peninsula, and although fishing is not advertised separately, guests can also go out to sea with them. “Guests are very excited about it! And that’s how you come to love Hiiumaa, when you’ve experienced something like this,” she emphasises, explaining how important it is to do something together with the locals.
“It’s in my husband’s blood – he needs to be either on the sea or by the sea! It attracts him and I see a change in him when he can’t go to sea,” Kätlin says, describing the visible restless feeling and adds that if, for example, you can’t go fishing because of bad weather, you should at least take a walk by the sea.
Kätlin believes that the surrounding sea affects the way of life and thinking of the island people. “The people of Hiiumaa say that ‘it is what it is’ – the sea makes you more peaceful and you get used to the fact that not everything depends on you, and you cannot change everything. You trust what comes,” she says, summing up living in harmony with the sea in a balanced way.
Heino: The call of the fish ignite the scavenger instinct
Heino (73), from Läänemaa, was a sailor in his youth and sailed the seas of the world. Between two of these voyages, he met his future wife, who had travelled from Saaremaa to the mainland to visit relatives. After getting married and having children, he did not go back to sailing the seas and Saaremaa became his home – it has been like this for half a century now. Life on the island has kept the sea not only in his heart, but also very close in reality.
“The sea invites you in with its vastness, but it must be respected and appreciated. Now I can also sense the fish calling me – perhaps the scavenger’s instinct explains it, but the sea still has its own mysterious attraction,” Heino says, convinced. In his opinion, what makes fishing fascinating is the fact that you never know whether you will catch fish or not – going mushroom or berry picking cannot induce the same level of excitement.
He considers good preliminary work to be more important than luck in fishing (i.e., a combination of good fishing gear and basic skills, as well as casting distance and reeling speed of the spinner). Of course, he also has days when he doesn’t catch a single fish or only almost catches a fish… and then it gets away at the last moment. “Not all the fish can be caught, but that doesn’t put me in a bad mood at all. I’ve even had the feeling of relief that there will be one less job afterwards.” Heino says that the fish he catches have emotions: “You reel one in and feel it when the fish bites!”
You would think that the fisherman has no shortage of different recipes, but it turns out that Heino keeps it very simple, and above all he loves salted whitefish and fried pike – fish in all its authenticity is always the main character.
You always have the desire to go fishing when the weather is nice, but you also need to take enough time to do so. Fish keep both the love of the sea and the scavenger instinct alive. “When you get into the boat and away from the beach, you feel good. You cast the first spinner and…” he is already at sea in his mind.
Kusti: I am a fish
Kusti (9) is already a passionate fisherman, and he likes the water very much: “I could swim all the time and in fact, I am a fish – my star sign is Pisces.”
He does not know of other children who are as interested in fishing. “It’s exciting! I never know what will appear under the water – if at all or how big?! It’s an addiction – a kind of useful addiction. My brothers took me fishing, taught me, and now it’s like this!”, Kusti says, concrete in his life wisdom. Of course, you have to have free time to go fishing. “I would like to be ‘sick and off school’ in the spring so that I could start fishing in the morning.”
He thinks that fishing is actually a good change for his mother and father, and he has even gone fishing with his grandmother. Although his mother Sille does not come along as much as his father, she also has her own story about fishing; she organises a roach fishing competition for children and young people called Lõve Lust, which has already been a tradition for ten years.
When asked what the most exciting fishing trip has been, Kusti answers that all fishing is exciting, but he also gives one example: “When fishing for pike with a lure, it seemed that the lure got stuck to the bottom. My big brother came to help me loosen the lure, but then the “bottom” started swimming around the boat… Pike, 4.08 kilograms – the biggest I’ve caught so far! The scariest experience was in Sweden, when a salmon as long as I am tall was pulled into the boat.”
Kusti can also clean fish himself. “I can even make perch fillets. We have a rule at home – whoever catches, cleans. My older brothers sometimes caught so many fish that our mother and grandmother could not clean it all themselves, so this rule was made.” In the spring, he likes to catch roach the most, and in winter, pike. It can be done right after school because he lives by the river.
Apart from the fact that fish keep the young fisherman busy, Kusti thinks that all people should eat fish because it is tasty and keeps a person healthy. Can you ever get tired of fishing? “No, not even if there are no fish. And if there are no fish, you think about what could be done differently – whether to change the worm or move to another place.” Fishing has taught him to always find solutions.
A biography compiled from fish stories
Fishing has even been considered a metaphor for life. Just like fishing, a good life requires timing, preparation, equipment, skill, patience, and luck, as well as the ability to tolerate failure, not to lose faith, and accept the inevitable. When living on the islands, this comparison between life and fishing is even sharper and stronger, because the island’s inhabitants are always at sea – or rather in the middle of the sea – and live side by side with nature. The passion for fish that has appeared in people’s stories can rightfully be considered a passion for life. What’s more, “kala” (fish) is one of the oldest words in the Estonian language, and every Estonian has at least a little passion for fish. Near the sea, this sometimes incomprehensible and strange passion tends to blossom – occasionally quite surprisingly, but always captivatingly and satisfyingly.
To answer the question of what makes island life unique and special, we have come quite close to the secret… If you rearrange the letters in the word “saareelu” (island life), the secret reveals itself – “elus aare” (living treasure) is the perfect description of the island life.