Faroe Islands Round-Up

Chasing a Herd of sheep Across a Mid-Atlantic island Landscape

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 export, it was also the only currency for many locals. They would trade knitted garments for salt, sugar, coffee and other necessities.

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 – the wind sweeping the islands does not make life easy for trees. Sheep stroll nonchalantly along cliff edges. Fjords look deceptively calm, but open on to the wildest of 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 a Fjord on Vágar Island at the far western edge of the archipelago.