Timeline

In Vargavågen at Halhjem, just a few kilometers from Oselvarverkstaden, we find 3000-year-old rock carvings from the Bronze Age. Here you can see 13 ships along with a number of other figures.
Leather boats from the Stone Age, illustration Arkikon

10000 BC – Oldest traces of humans in Western Norway

8500 BC – Traces of leather boats in Norway

5000 BC – Traces of dugout log boats

2400 BC – Traces of plank boats

400 BC. – Boats are sawn with osiers or roots

Year 0 – Oarlocks are used on the boats, and the transition is made from paddling to rowing

300 – The Halsnøy boat

700 – The seal becomes commonplace in the Nordic region

Expanded dugout log boat and clinker boat with several lengths of planking

900 – Gokstad ferry

1500-1850 – Export of Oselvar boats to Shetland

1664 – 31 active boat builders were registered around the Bjørnefjord

1750 – The Tøsdal men started building boats on the Oselvo river, giving the boat its name

1847 – First place in rowing competition with an Oselvar on Lungegårds lake in Bergen

1898 – “Os Baatbyggerforening” (Os boat builder association) is founded

Church outing, Ferstadvågen 1909. Source: Local history archive, Bjørnafjorden municipality

1978 – First Norwegian championship in donkey sailing

1990 – Oselvarlaget is founded

1997 – Oselvarverkstaden is founded

Source: Kjell Magnus Økland: “Oselvaren, den levande båten”, Einar Østmo, Professor, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo

Here you can read more about the Nordic clinker boat tradition