Finstad

A fishing trip to remember

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This WebSite celebrates the fishing trip to Norway made by Robert Baden-Powell with his nephew Donald in 1912.

That year, Harold Soames took his younger daughter Olave, then 23, on a cruise to the West Indies… on the SS Arcadian, the same ship that Robert Baden-Powell had booked passage on to travel to America for a lecture tour, and it was thus that Olave Soames met Robert B-P.  And they discovered that they shared a birthday, the 22nd of February, he in 1857; she in 1889, thirty-two years later.  B-P and Olave fell in love on that voyage, during which they visited the Panama Canal which was under construction at the time.  But Olave and her father were only on that ship as far as Jamaica; B-P was to continue on the ship to New York.

On their last evening together before the ship took him away, he made a suggestion – that they ask the ship’s Captain to marry them!  They agreed that that was unrealistic -  but the commitment was made.  B-P went on to New York, and then proceeded with his lecture tour.  But he was distracted !  He wrote frequent letters to Olave, and she to him, but as both were travelling, the letters had quite a job finding them.

Upon arriving back in England, Olave and her father returned home to Lilliput in Dorset, to await B-P’s return to England.  But when he did get back, instead of rushing straight down to see Olave and to ask her father for her hand in marriage, WHAT did B-P do ? He dashed off to Norway with his nephew Donald, to whom he had made a promise before going to America, “When I get back, the first thing I shall do is to take you fishing in Norway.”  And so that’s what they did.  And where did they go ?  Why, to Finstad.  At 61.848997 N, 10.326471 E.

After a glorious relaxing week, B-P and Donald returned to England, and B-P finally managed to get down to Dorset to see Olave – and to face the anger of her father !

This WebSite relates the story of that fishing trip, with an update.

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