Wool is Gold
An old Faroese proverb says, “Ull er Føroya gull” and it means something along the lines of “wool is Faroese gold”. This proverb truly reflects centuries of a Faroese way of life. While wool and woollen garments used to constitute the majority of Faroese exports, it was also the only currency for many locals. They would trade knitted garments for salt, sugar, coffee and other necessities.
Once a major world exporter of wool, the Faroese wool industry has been dominated by New Zealand’s larger scale wool production. Today, wool is burned in large quantifies here, protecting local and migratory bird populations from becoming entangled in loose wool that would otherwise litter the hillsides above its mid-Atlantic fjords.
Border collies were used to corral the sheep in a large pen where they received a health inspection and a haircut!
The Faroe Islands sit in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, more or less due north of Scotland, roughly halfway between Iceland and Norway. Bare green mountains rise out of the water and the wind sweeping the islands does not make life easy for trees. Sheep stroll nonchalantly along cliff edges. Fjords look deceptively calm, but open onto some very wild seas.
Landscape photography took me to the Faroe Islands but it was this unexpected encounter with a Faroese sheep herding troop that stole the spotlight on my 2017 trip. I will never forget the day I had with the shepherds, combing the hillsides in this craggy, mid-Atlantic landscape, rounding up sheep and shearing them by hand at the edge of the beautiful Sorvagsfjord on Vágar Island.
