Anders is the owner, manager and creative founder of Kajakkspesialisten - The Kayak
Specialist, based in Norway.

Today, Anders is one of the few people in the world who manage to make a
living out of building traditional skin-on-frame kayaks. For many years,
he worked with the Norwegian paddle organization as a coach also and is
an avid and experienced paddler himself. Anders uses his long experience
as a paddler when constructing and building kayaks in classes or for
other people. Today he primarily focuses on managing and developing
Kajakkspesialisten, making Greenland paddles and teaching kayak building
classes. People come from all over the world to participate in classes
now mostly held at the old chapel in Vestfossen, Norway, which has been
the home of Kajakkspesialisten since 2012.

He has lived in Norway since 1992 and has his educational background in
outdoor education, craftsmanship and arts. He started his company in
1996, where he started giving sea kayaking classes, kayak building
classes and later on, paddle making classes. Today over a thousand
people have built their own Greenland kayak or baidarka here, and just
as many people have built their own paddle. Greenland paddles have
become more and more popular and the popularity still grows.

In 2011, he paddled the entire coast of Norway in a traditional baidarka
of his own making. According to Anders, this kayak type is one of the
best Inuit kayaks ever. In 2014, he and Silje Ensby made a film about
building a baidarka. A very beautiful and poetic film about finding the
long lost and forgotten knowledge of the Aleutian master builders. Watch
it here:

A thousand hands ago https://vimeo.com/andersthygesen. Read more about
Anders Thygesen, The Kayak Specialist and The Chapel elsewhere on his
website.