Tunold was born on the island of Selja on Norway's west coast. His father, an emigrant from Stryn, and his mother, a native of Vanylven, had established a farm on the church grounds on the island. Bernt, the youngest of nine siblings, was named after his father and the island priest, Wilhelm Koren. Selja was a poor rural society, but was not separated from the surrounding world. A steamboat frequently visited the island, carrying passengers to the mainland or Bergen, later serving as the first part of a poor peasant's journey to America. The family farm, which Tunold depicted in several of his works, had, according to the census of 1875, three cows, one bull, a dozen sheep and a few goats. This could not support a family of eleven, and the father was forced to work as a travelling tailor in the winter.
