Fleet will be blessed at Fishermen's Terminal in Ballard

For the past 80 years, Seattle's fishing boats have gone to sea at the beginning of halibut season with songs and prayers.

The Blessing of the Fleet, once a beloved Seattle ritual, was started in 1929 by Ballard First Lutheran Church's Olai Haavik, a Norwegian immigrant minister who knew fishing and fishermen and wanted to honor them.

Eight decades later, a smaller version continues, reflective of the changes in the industry, the community and the church that still hosts the event.

At 2 p.m. today, the Rev. Erik Wilson Weiberg and the Rev. Malcolm Unseth, will give the blessing at Fishermen's Terminal. Unseth will ask:

"Lord ... marshal your efforts to give fair wind and quiet to the sea." He'll give thanks for the survival of all 106 crew members of the Seattle-based fishing ship Pacific Glacier, which caught fire in the Bering Sea off Alaska Feb. 26.

Weiberg will include a prayer for fishermen to be blessed with a good catch and be good stewards of the bounty of the sea.

The ceremony marks the halibut-fishing season, which started on Saturday. As in the past several years, one boat will receive the blessing for the entire fleet. This year it will be Paul Matson's fishing boat, Anita. Many others are already on their way to the Gulf of Alaska.

Though Haavik, a native Norwegian who considered a boat his first pulpit, started the Blessing of the Fleet, the ceremony is not a Norwegian tradition.

Blessings of the Fleet are well-known in Italy, where the first recorded event happened before A.D. 1000, and the tradition may have spread with Christianity to other countries, historians believe.

Waterfront towns with Portuguese and Italian communities often have large fleet-blessing celebrations, but the Norwegian-American ones are few, Seattle's being the oldest and best known.

"It's important to the crews and just as important to the owners, the families, wives and survivors," said John Bruce, a manager of Jubilee Fisheries.

Years ago, when fishing was a thriving industry in Seattle, the Blessing of the Fleet attracted a large crowd. Unseth recalled that the church had so many fishermen that for the special service others were asked to stay away to make room.

Times have changed. As fish runs declined, so, too, did the number of fishermen.

News accounts of blessings from the early 1960s show fishermen then worried about the effect new regulations would have on their industry. The blessings of later years addressed fish decline, and the story about the blessing in 1981 noted for-sale signs dotting boats at Fishermen's Terminal.

In 1988, the Fishermen's Memorial was erected, which bears the names of the more than 670 who died while fishing since 1900. New names are added periodically. Since then, in the minds of many, the annual Blessing of the Fleet has become a time to honor those lost at sea.

On Friday, Jody Hanson and her daughter, Becky Waits, placed a bouquet of carnations and delphiniums on the granite Fishermen's Memorial, which includes the name of Hanson's son, Thomas Hanson, who died in 1989 when the crab boat Vestfjord sank 70 miles south of Kodiak, Alaska.

Jody Hanson will attend today's blessing, as she has for many years, as a way to honor her son, and, this year, her fisherman husband, Bernie Hanson, who died Feb. 7 from an illness.

Though some seek solace at the Blessing of the Fleet, Weiberg emphasizes that it's a celebration of life.

With dwindling participation — sometimes fewer than 100 people attend the ceremony — the First Lutheran Church board for the first time this year considered abandoning it, Weiberg said. The church, like Ballard, has changed.

Fishing folks no longer make up the congregation. Ballard is no longer dominated by Scandinavian immigrants. The community is becoming home to more and more condominium projects. As a result, the church is focused on efforts such as reaching out to gay and lesbian neighbors and condo dwellers, Weiberg said.

Still, Weiberg argued in favor of continuing to sponsor the blessing, he said. Often among those gathered are men who have fished for 40, 50 years, or their surviving spouses.

"It's the personal contact I make," Weiberg said. "Afterward, I'm always glad I've done it."

Native Norwegians Tor Tolleson and Einar Langesater, both involved in the marine industry, always attend the blessing.

"Fishermen are superstitious people," Tolleson said. A blessing is like an insurance policy, he believes.

For some, the blessing "is mixed up with good luck," Weiberg acknowledged. But for those who go to sea, the blessing lets them know "they have a network of support."

Nancy Bartley: 206-464-8522 or nbartley@seattletimes.com