A summer at Bjøra
Reidar has had his Peson boat for two years. We sat down to talk about what has been best — and what surprised him.
Thomas Lestum
Produksjon
Reidar Skogheim is from Steinkjer, but his summer cabin sits by the Bjøra — the tributary of the Namsen that has earned its place among Norway's finest fly-fishing rivers. For two years his Peson boat has lain out there at the cabin jetty, winter and summer, with nobody tending to it.
We drove up in February to hear how it had gone.
Why he bought it
Reidar previously had a fibreglass boat that had served him well for many years, but which demanded steadily more upkeep. It was one October weekend in 2023 in particular — when he had to make his way down to the Bjøra in freezing temperatures to cover it up — that he decided to look for alternatives.
"I wanted something I didn't have to think about," he says. "A boat I could put out early in spring and forget about until autumn."
"I haven't put a tarpaulin over that boat since we bought it. Not once."
Two seasons on
The boat has been in the water more or less without a break since May 2024 — apart from a few weeks each winter when the ice sets in. Reidar has done no maintenance beyond rinsing it down with fresh water a couple of times a year.