He principally wrote about the lives of the poor farmers and fishermen, both in his native Norway and among the Norwegian immigrants in the United States.

[1] Bojer was born Johan Kristoffer Hansen in the village of Ørkedalsøren, now part of the town of Orkanger in Trøndelag county.

The son of unmarried parents—Hans Christophersen Bojer and Johanna Iversdatter Elgaaen—he grew up as a foster child in a poor family living in Rissa Municipality near Trondheim, Norway.

This novel powerfully and realistically depicts the lives of fishermen from Trøndelag, who spend the winter fishing in the Lofoten island archipelago within the Arctic Circle near the far north coast of Norway.

In 1923, Bojer journeyed to Litchville, North Dakota, to research the lives of the Norwegian immigrants who had settled there.