Since I finished reading this latest National Geographic Magazine article, "Viking Life in the Storm-Cursed Faeroes," I have vowed to never complain about our cold, nasty winter weather with the icy, slick roads. My life is heaven on earth compared to the folks who lived in these islands in the Norwegian Sea in 1930. Mr. Leo Hansen reports the activities of his two summers there in the November, 1930, issue.
A bit of geography: there are 22 islands, 17 of which were inhabited in 1930, in the Faeroe Islands. They are due west of Norway, north of Scotland, southeast of Greenland, but were owned by Denmark, 1,000 miles to their southeast. In a land half the size of the United States' Rhode Island, there were approximately 22,000 inhabitants at that time. The islands are mostly black basalt, volcanic rock, with high cliffs on most sides some 400 to 600 to 2,000 feet high.
Mr. Hansen traveled to the Faeroes with one of its natives, a veterinarian who was an expert sailor. They attempted some 200 trips to various islands. Due to the extreme and unrelenting wind which whipped up tall waves around the cliffs, all trips could not be completed. Nearly all trips on and between these islands had to be made by sea. "Two automobiles, both American, have been brought to the island. The longest trip that can be made in them is two miles, on a narrow road out of Thorshavn. What gondolas are to Venice, rowboats are to The Faeroes" (p. 613).
Whenever Mr. Hansen tried to land on one of the islands, he would have to take off his shoes to avoid slipping on the rocks, and leap onto nearby rocks. This was extremely dangerous and he landed in the cold ocean at times. He writes, "Myggenses (island) is cursed by wind and waves, for the storms that leave Newfoundland and Greenland gather all their forces and loose them here" (p. 617). And then, "Winds blow so violently the year around that trees are a rarity, growing only in the most protected places" (p. 642).
The town of Thorshavn is the capital of The Faeroes. In spite of the availability of stone, islanders prefer to build their homes of wood which must be 100% imported. On the northern islands are found "sons and daughters of the Viking settlers, who came about 800 A.D. They have blue eyes and flaxen hair. They are silent, grim, determined" (p. 637). In the south they "often have dark hair and eyes" and seem "more hospitable to strangers" (p. 637). Yet, they share a common language of Scandinavian origin, Faeroese.
These islanders build rock fences, some of them six feet wide, reinforced with iron rods. "Often, when storms howl down on the islands, blotting out even the rock walls barricading the house, entire families hug the fire for weeks at a time, never venturing outside" (p. 625).
The chief occupation of the islanders was catching and drying codfish for an international market. They also had sheep herds. "Higher wages and an easier life on the continent cannot lure the Faeroe farmer from his sod-roofed house, his thin soil that will grow no grain save barley, and his flock of sheep that suffers as much as he in the gales that spray the black rocks and pastures with the salt spume of a raging sea. When he cannot find a sheep, he knows what has happened: the wind has blown it over a cliff" (p. 621).
The islands had a very large bird population, mostly sea parrots, also called puffins. They nest in the cliffs. Some of the men catch these birds with nets or go down the cliffs to gather eggs. This is incredibly dangerous! "No one ever got hurt, no one ever got off with a broken leg; one either got killed or didn't get killed" (p. 643).
Mr. Hansen wanted to photograph a whale hunt but it didn't happen. "So I am going back some summer and wait for that telephone call, "Whales sighted!" " (p. 648).
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