In the morning we came to a place full of people dressed in furs. They were Laplanders and Finlanders. A great fair was taking place, and most of the people had crossed the mountains to the Arctic Sea, taking with them for sale reindeer meat, butter, cheese, reindeer cheese made in the summer and autumn, frozen ptarmigans, skins of reindeer, bears, foxes, ermines, and other animals; ready-made clothing, gloves and shoes of reindeer skin; hoofs of reindeer, and other things. They bought salted and dried codfish, sugar, coffee, salt, and other groceries, flour, lamp oil, tobacco, and things for their wives and children, and took back cash with them. After a short stay we raised our anchor, and continued to sail along that bleak coast until we came to a hidden harbor, well protected by a number of barren islands from the storms of the Arctic Ocean, and cast anchor before a large fishing settlement. It was the beginning of April. It was a strange place indeed. The port was filled with fishing boats. Hundreds of them were drawn up on the shore, and other hundreds were at anchor. There were also a number of good-sized vessels and smaller craft. All along the rocky shore were huge piles of codfish caught that day. The water was crowded with boats moving in every direction, loaded with cod. Alongside the big piles of fish, men dressed in wide trousers and overalls of leather were busy preparing the codfish. Some were cutting the heads off and throwing them into a pile, while others were opening the fish, cleaning them, and then, after flattening them, throwing them to other men, who salted them. After this operation they were carried to the warehouses and were ready for drying. By some of the piles men opened and cleaned the fish and tied them together by twos. After this they were hung on frames or poles. In other places the men divided the cod in halves, taking their spines out, but kept them connected by their gills. These were also hung on the poles. When dry the fish is as hard as wood. The eggs or ova were put into barrels and salted, and Captain Ole Petersen, who was with me, said to me: "Each barrel contains the ova of three hundred cod. They are sent to Italy and France and used in the sardine fisheries of those countries." Other men were busy putting the livers into barrels, two barrels of fat liver yielding about one barrel of brown oil. The tongues of the cod were taken out of the heads, put into barrels and salted. I visited the warehouses, built partly on piles projecting into the sea. Along some of these were brigs and schooners loading. What a sight was the inside of these warehouses! They were filled with long deep rows of freshly salted codfish, piled higher than a man and about the same width. These fish were to be put on board ships and landed upon rocks, there to stay until they were dried and ready to be shipped to foreign countries. The cod is the gold of the people living on this desolate land.