Hakon.

At seventeen he went to the mainland to learn the trade. He came back with three things: a certificate, a toolbox bought on installments and no wish to share a room with anyone. The houses over there stand on piles, and the pile that is plumb today may not be plumb tomorrow, so the work never quite ends: it gets spread out across weeks. A backpack is what you pick up when the day's job is in somebody else's house. There is more of him in his biography.

At eighteen they gave him three weeks of work on a house in the top row that was going over on one corner. The village boat left in August and he watched it go from the roof, harness on and one hand on the chimney. That makes six winters. He has a three-week answer for each one and he has never added them up. When somebody asks him whether he isn't leaving, he answers with the job he has that week.