Viking Craft and Sailing

Are you fascinated by the vikings? Do you find yourself spinning yarn, or blacksmithing, or do you want to know how to do that? Well, we don't have a viking course here at Fosen, but many of our electives and much of what we do in the courses is related to viking craft:

Examples of viking related electives are Viking sewing, tablet weaving, coopering (barrel-making), plant-based dying, blacksmithing, chestmaking, rigid-heddle weaving, toolmaking, square-rig sailing, basketweaving, and hide tanning. The electives we offer vary from year to year, so maybe not all of these will be available. Electives make up one-third of all classtime at Fosen.

We sail Åfjords-boats on our sailing course, which are closely related to the ships the Vikings sailed. Our boats are square-rigged, and are sailed in much the same way Viking ships were. Our sailing teacher has experience with the Seastallion from Glendaloch and the Dragon Harald Fairhair, two world reknowed viking ships.

The Boat Building students will be the ones building these boats, in a way similar to how the Vikings would have done it. You'll get to build a boat with axes, knives, planes, and chiesels, but we also have some machines to help the process along. You will also learn a lot about the materials: wood, metal, rope, etc. And learn to sharpen knives and axes. Truely a great foundation for further study into boat building, woodworking, or a degree in say, folk art.

In the Craft and Design course you will learn various crafts, such as plant-based dying, tablet weaving, naalbinding, spinning with a drop spindle, hide tanning, basket weaving, and making your own tablets, or heddles for your weaving. The hides and wool are gotten both from the schools own sheep, and from another of our friends of the school that works with us to provide us hides.

On our Self-Sufficiency course you can also learn other Viking crafts, such as burning tar, blacksmithing, making fire without matches, slaughter, and tanning hides.

Self sufficiency

Skills to manage yourself. It takes time. Here you will have time, a good teacher and an inspiring community. The globe needs you who want to learn the basics.

Sailing

You get to learn to sail, and navigate inbetween rocks and cliff faces, and to be crafty and sportsmanly by working together to sail over the sea. As well as carry a thousand year tradition forward the the next generation.

Tiny houses constuction

That many people build bigger and bigger houses is a problem for a world of limited space and resources. With this line we want to be a countermeasure for overuse and waste.

Organic Farming

At Fosen Folkehøgskole we have our own farm. We grow potatoes and vegetables, herbs, grains and grass.

Hand work and Design

Wool and leather from our own Villsau sheep, plants to color our hand-spun yarn, and willows to weave into baskets to carry it all in. Our hands and ideas are what make the whole process work, from raw materials to finished products.

Boatbuilding

Turn a tree standing in the forest into a boat bloating across the waves. The journey begins with working in the forest to collect our wood, and ends with our own handmade boat.

Viking Craft and Sailing

Are you fascinated by the vikings? Do you find yourself spinning yarn, or blacksmithing, or do you want to know how to do that?