Fishing for life
In summer, Finland’s southernmost point, the port of Hanko, is a resort town known for its sandy beaches and regattas. In winter, violent seas and bitterly cold water can make the place dangerous, especially for professional fishermen. Magnus Ekström is one of them and he isn’t worried...
The March sun is dazzlingly bright as Magnus Ekström and his father Sven-Olof pull a sledge on the sea ice off the north side of the Hanko Peninsula. The sled carries an ice drill, a big roll of string, a fish tub and other gear. Magnus Ekström, a professional fisherman, is on his way to check his nets,which are under the ice. The first part of the 60-metre trammel net
is empty except for a few bits of bladder wrack seaweed.
In the last metres of the net is the day’s first fish, a bream weighing less than a kilo.
“The other day we got 14 bream and two pike from this one,” says Sven-Olof. A retired metalworker, he helps his son with the fishing. The skimpy catch is no surprise, as in winter the fish do not move much and it is only worth checking the nets once every four days or so. In cold water the fish stay fresh anyway.
Ekström only fishes with nets, in some winters setting more than six kilometres of them under the ice.
“Then we went through 1000-1500 metres of nets every day, and we were on the ice throughout the daylight hours. Mild winters are difficult, though, since the sea does not freeze properly,” Ekström says.
Along with his hundreds of nets, Ekström’s equipment includes two
large and three smaller boats, as well as hydrocopter that he uses during the spring thaw plus an all-terrain vehicle for driving on thick ice.
In summer, the main problem is the large amount of algae, which soil the
nets. Also, when the water is warm, the nets must be checked at least twice a day to make sure the catch does not spoil.
An expanding fish empire
Fishing is Ekström’s principal source of income, but he has built other operations on the side.
“You can make a living by just fishing, but it’s tough. For instance having our own restaurant is important to us,” Ekström says.
Suggesting how difficult the job is, the number of Finnish professional fishers has dropped by one third since the turn of the millennium. There are now about 650 working in maritime areas and about 150 on inland waters. Their average age is high, just over 50.
The Ekströms have a sales booth at Helsinki’s most diverse indoor market, Hakaniemi Hall. Along with his own fish, Ekström sells seafood that
he buys from 10-15 other fishermen.
The fish and shellfish restaurant På Kroken, located at the town of
Hanko’s guest harbour, is Ekström’s latest success story. The name in Ekström’s mother tongue, Swedish, means “on the hook”. In its
first year and a half of operations, the restaurant has earned rave reviews and hooked bags of customers, a lot of them vistors from outside Finland.
The restaurant’s main season is summer; during the winter it is only
open on weekends. På Kroken also has a café and a fish shop, where visiting sailors or people heading off to summer cottages pick up smoked fish and other delicacies to take along.
Ekström’s ‘fish empire’ is moving into a new direction early this summer, as his new fish processing plant begins operations near the restaurant. The facility, which received EU subsidies, will give pride of place to smoked and salt-cured raw salmon (gravlax).
“The idea is to bring fish processing back to Hanko after a hiatus of 20 years,” he explains.
Ekström does not believe that the economic downturn is affecting the fishery sector much. Whether there’s a recession or not, people have to eat and Finns love fish. So far at least, the family enterprise has sold all the fish they have caught.
By Hasse Härkönen
Photos Kreetta Järvenpää
