ALTA Nineteen Years, 1970-1988
Photographs by Jan Ekman
The photographs
Jan Ekman fished the Alta in Norway for nineteen years, 1970-1988. He was a keen photographer and took over 6,000 photos from his trips. A few were used in his 1983 book about the river and the dam (re-published in English in 2013: Seven Nights on the Alta), but most of them were only shared with a few fishing friends. After Jan passed in 2004, his family donated the negatives to the Alta Museum so they could be properly archived and the Museum has kindly agreed to let around 200 images be included in this book.
Buy ALTA Nineteen years
The fishing and the fish
These photos were taken long before the modern digital cameras that capture great images, even in low light. Fishing was done at night, often with clouds and rain. The midnight sun helped, but it didn’t reach the canyon floor so even though Jan used Kodak Tri-X film, apertures were large and shutter speeds slow. Furthermore, rods were not shared in those days and the anglers were spread far apart leaving few opportunities to take pictures, other than at meal breaks and back at the lodge. As a result, there are not many pictures of fishing in the book, but there are many of large fish. The catches were often astounding; one year the group of six rods landed just shy of one metric ton of salmon.
The boatmen
There has been a marked shift in fishing practices over the last several years and catch and release is practiced more and more on the Alta, especially for fish over 7 kilos. Overall, 40-50% of fish are now being released so this book would look very different if made today. What has not changed is the skill of the boatmen. They were the heroes of Jan’s 1983 book and their portraits are the highlight of this one.
Support Norwegian Salmon Rivers
All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to Norwegian Salmon Rivers, an organisation primarily lobbying for more sustainable salmon farming and stricter regulations in rivers impacted by hydro power. After the dramatic closure of several of Norway’s most well-known rivers in 2024, its work is more important than ever.
