By Robbie LaFleur

Bibles and a Båtrye

A bible box with a beautifully-painted stave church on the top.

Norma Wangsness is a talented painter and rosemaler; her home is filled with paintings of Norwegian and Midwestern landscapes. Beautiful benches, boxes and other wooden items are embellished with the meticulous scrolls and flowers of traditional Norwegian rosemaling. When the king and queen of Norway came to visit the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum, she was chosen to create a gift for them, a rosemaled plate with a painting of the king and queen in the center. 

Three boxes flank the edge of her dining room.  Two hold heirloom Norwegian bibles with family history written in them, one from the 1800s and the other from the 1700s. But the third box holds a unique family textile treasure, a båtrye (boat rya) brought to Iowa in 1872 by Norma’s husband’s grandfather, Ole K. Strand, who emigrated at 19 from Kristiansund. The family believes the rye originally belonged to Ole’s grandfather, a fisherman, which would date it around 1850 or earlier.   

A photo of the king and queen painted by Norma is in front of the custom båtrye box.

Ole Strand passed the båtrye to his son Dr. Carl Strand in California, who described it in a family history, noting that Ole brought three båtrye with him to America, but two were destroyed by mice. After Norma and Willis wrote to Willis’s uncle and asked if they might buy it or care for it for the next generation, Dr Strand brought it to Decorah and presented it to them in 1989.  Willis built a custom wooden box for it, and Norma painted it.  She found rosemaling designs typical of the Trondelag area where the båtrye originated, and a ship adorns the curved top of the box. 

The inside of the båtrye box also features rosemaling scrolls.

Norma and Willis consulted with Marian and Lila Nelson about the båtrye.  Marian was the head of the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum and Lila was the Curator of Textiles. Lila told them that from its design and colors, it appeared to be a Norwegian West Coast rye, and told them about the value of the pile coverlet to fishing families. The thick wool spun from indigenous Norwegian spelsau sheep was naturally water-repellent and provided warmth and protection to men sleeping on wooden bunks on fishing boats in the cold North Sea.  Given the amount of wool and work required to weave a båtrye, it was noteworthy if a young woman had one in her dowry. 

Another expert opinion

When Marta Kløve Juuhl, a weaver and weaving instructor from Bergen, Norway, came to Decorah this fall to teach her popular warp-weighted loom classes, she also visited the rya.  She and her friend Solveig Jordal from the Osterøy Museum expertly examined and described the piece. 

The base is woven in three-shaft twill, set densely at approximately 16 ends per inch. The warp is two-ply, spun from the strong guard hair of the sheep. The thick ground weft is woven of single-ply wool spun from the softer undercoat.  Six shots of ground weft were woven between each row of knots. 

The knots are woven of the same yarn as the weft, but double-ply. They were unevenly knotted, probably purposely. The current softer and fuzzier appearance of the pile is the result of many of the knots becoming unplied. “It’s very interesting to see the big yarn used for the knots compared to the other side,” Marta noted. 

The fuzzy surface of knot yarn unplied by age and use

Marta commented that there could have been letters or patterns woven in, obscured by fading. It was common to add dates to a båtrye; the oldest existing båtrye in Norway is dated 1682.

Look at the deep reddish-orange flash at the bottom of the knots. Imagine the impact of the color when the båtrye was new.

The rya could definitely have come from Nordland, especially given the family information, but that style could have been from anywhere along the West Coast of Norway down to Sognefjord. Solveig, Marta and I equally felt happy that Norma Wangness has preserved this rya so carefully, and gave us the opportunity to inspect it closely. As a museum employee and a weaver, Marta said she has seen lots of ryas, but hasn’t had the chance to dig into the knots and examine one so closely. 

“It speaks to the value that it was chosen to take by the family—perhaps it was useful on the voyage from Norway.”  Marta Kløve Juuhl

This piece traveled from the oceans of Norway–probably used on a North Sea fishing boat more than 120 years ago–to the Midwest of the U.S. It tells us the story of its creation in its materials and technique.  It deserves that special box!