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Far away in the Faroes
03 January 2010
While we were half asleep, an announcement from the cockpit heralded our pending decent to the westerly island of Vagar which, like all these volcanic protrusions that make up the Faroes, is frequently fog-enshrouded.
It was about 3am and the disembodied message went something like this: ‘‘The mists have come down quite thickly. We’ll circle for a bit and hope they’ll lift. If they don’t, we’ll go on to plan B - but more of that later." Forty-five minutes later, the voice woke us again:
‘‘Well, it looks as though the mists have no intention of lifting. We’ll make one attempt at landing - if we can see the runway. If not, we’ll head for Bergen in Norway for what’s left of the night."
We all held our collective breath and finally felt the wheels connect with tarmac.
We’d made it and smoothly too. The following day, when we saw that the runway ended about two millimetres from the cliff edge, we realised why the pilot needed contingency plans.
This clutch of rugged islands - 18 in all and, until recently, not a golf course in sight - has been a self-governing region since 1948, under the Kingdom of Denmark. It has its own money, its own language and its own unique culture.
It is believed that Irish monks were the first settlers in the sixth century and DNA testing shows that the women did originate in Celtic places like Ireland, while the men folk hold Nordic lineage. The country is small, about the size of Longford, with a population of 48,000 people.
The answer to the geography question ‘‘Where are they?" is roughly half-way between Iceland and Scotland. They benefit from the lapping of the Gulf Stream, so wintry days seldom see temperatures drop below 4 degrees Celsius, while summer days peak at around 10.5 celcius. They are short on daylight hours in winter, though, with daybreak around the 10am mark and dusk at 3pm.
Life operates at a different pace in these islands, which have been shaped by the sea and the inhospitable winds that blow over the jagged fjordic mounds.
Rivers and streams don’t trickle gently by - they gush and rush, running waterfalls everywhere and cutting deep clefts into the terrain. The traditional wooden homes are usually painted with pitch and topped by authentic turf or meadow roofs, providing great insulation.
They don’t blow off in gales either, I’m told.
The Faroes came into many people’s consciousness earlier this year, when they appointed Brian Kerr as the manager of their national football team. Football is a serious pastime on the islands, which have 22 clubs, all with artificial grass pitches.
Their best-known player, now retired, is Jens Martin Knudsen, who always wore his signature bobble hat in goal. A part-time forklift truck driver at the Runavik fish factory, he made his debut playing in the country’s first Fifa-recognised match against Iceland in 1988. In 1990 they upset the form guide, and the bookies too, when they beat Austria 1-0 in a qualifier for Euro 92.
Now Kerr is entrusted with the task of trying to put this football-crazed nation back in the spotlight again, and made a good start by beating Lithuania in a World Cup qualifier last September.
The islands are a sanctuary to all sorts of bird life and to one of the biggest puffin colonies in the world. St Brendan the Navigator was here more than once - consequently there’s a Saint Brendan’s Bay and church. Some believe that the smallest island of Mykines is the island he charted and named ‘‘the paradise for sheep and birds’’ in his writings in the sixth century.
We took a boat trip to view the towering bird cliffs at Westmanna, which attract ornithologists from all over.
That took us along the serrated coastline, into deep grottoes and through narrow sounds.
We were blessed with a wonderful day and manageable seas, so we were able to ford the rapids between two steep rock faces, wearing industrial hard hats to protect us from falling rocks. An exhilarating experience. Fulmars, black guillemots, gulls, storm petrels, Arctic skuas, kittiwakes and their national bird, the oystercatcher, all live here.
Scientists estimate that there are more than two million pairs of birds on the islands. When the migratory ones return in March, their cries declare the beginning of summer for the Faroese.
There’s a proverb which says that ‘‘wool is the gold of the Faroes’’ and there are plenty of sheep as evidence. Before electricity, knitting was very much a communal activity - knitting the white wool by candlelight and the black by daylight.
We made our base in Tórshavn, the capital on Stremoy, and island-hopped by ferry and tunnel to Tindholmur, Esturoy and Bordoy.
The town is a mix of old and new, with many of the buildings dressed uniformly in a dull red finish. To get a manageable grasp of what makes these islanders tick, the Faroese Museum of History is a good place to start, followed by the open-air museum in the old village of Hoyvík.
No matter where you go, the vistas serve you a menu of walks and unrivalled views. The nebulous mists add mystique, and the changing skies would challenge any painter. The islands are speckled with little churches, each with its own vernacular decoration. Some are centuries old, made from driftwood and timbers washed in from ship wrecks. The newest was opened by Queen Margarethe of Denmark in 1995, and has striking stained glass windows and lighting all done by a local artist, Trondur Patursson.
Fishing plays a huge part in the life of the Faroes and, when there’s a whale kill (the whales are driven ashore to be killed), it’s a cause of celebration.
Whale measurers - experts whose skills have been passed on from generation to generation - can size one of the mammals just by walking around it and estimating how much meat and blubber it contains.
This is then weighed out and distributed free to everyone.
I even tried some of it at dinner. It tasted good, like steak, but with no fishy tinge.
Puffin was another delicacy on the menu, but this did not tickle my palate. It tastes gamey and is quite dry, and I kept seeing those lovely little faces and bright eyes. Rhubarb is the only native vegetable on the island and they use this in all sorts of innovative ways.
We met Jóannes Patursson (a nephew of the aforementioned stained glass artist), whose family has farmed the same land for 17 generations.
I noticed that his sons’ dog kennel had a grass roof too.
Although the young generations mostly go to Denmark for the several years of their university life, a surprising 90 per cent of them return to settle down.
Having spent an all too brief four days there, it was easy to see why they would be reluctant to leave, even for the bright lights of Copenhagen.
We, however, were heading for the airport and its very, very short runway.
Getting there
Getting there: flights with SAS via Denmark
www.flysas.com/en/ie
Where to stay: Hotel Vagar (at airport) tel. +298 33 29 55; web hotel@ff.fo.
Hotel Hafnia, Torshavn, tel. +298 313233; hafnia@hafnia.fo
Currency: Faroese Krona, pegged one to one with the Danish Krona. €1 = FKK7.44 What to buy: knitwear What to avoid: eating puffin Useful website: www.tourist.fo
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