Kirkebåt (Church Boat)
A long rowing boat shared by a whole parish to carry people to Sunday service, built clinker of pine or oak and owned jointly by several farms. Church boats rowed people across fjords and lakes until the early 1900s, carrying fifty or more parishioners at a time; surviving examples like the Rols from Stryn are kept and rowed again. Racing between parishes on the way home was part of the tradition. The kirkebåt was a true communal vessel, each farm holding a share and supplying rowers, and the boat itself served as the village's gathering place on the water as the crew sang and traded news on t