In the forgotten Faroe Islands, life still feels real

‘We don’t worry about Trump,’ Leene tells me over a pungent plate of fermented lamb. ‘We worry about what’s happening out there.’ She waves a hand at the window that frames the slate grey sky.

Sheltering against sheets of sideways rain, we’re in the only restaurant on Fugloy, the easternmost island of the forgotten Faroe Islands. Population at last count: 38 or 40, depending on who you ask.

A passing destroyer flying Denmark’s colours has steered conversation to US takeover threats on nearby Greenland and the disturbing state of the world.

But in far-flung corners like Fugloy, people focus on what matters: when they can fish, when they can sow, and when they can safely sail off this craggy lump of rock.

Leene, a Danish woman in her 60s who met her husband while working as a teacher on a neighbouring island, returns each summer on a sort of pilgrimage to his homeplace.

She’s here by happy accident. I’m here on purpose.

Under the radar

The Faroe Islands, a self-governing nation within the Kingdom of Denmark, are only a short flight from the UK. Yet they’re miles off the standard traveller’s radar.

Chances are, you haven’t been. You might struggle to pinpoint them on a map. When I told friends about my upcoming visit, one confused it with Faro, in Portugal. Another asked if ‘those were the ones near Egypt’.

Adrift in the swell of the North Atlantic, this 18-piece jigsaw of islands erupts from the ocean about 200 miles north of Scotland and 300 miles southeast of Iceland. It’s wild and windswept, and feels both ancient and modern, all at once.

Turf-roofed cottages and wooden churches embroider the vast, treeless moors. Cairn-marked trails weave across barren mountains.

Beneath them, a remarkable network of bridges and road tunnels has linked the seven most populous islands since the 1970s. Hidden within is the world’s only underwater roundabout, loomed over by a giant aquamarine jellyfish.

Even the most inaccessible hamlets are now connected, and somehow, phone signal is stronger than it is in London. On the ferry to Fugloy, where I meet half a dozen tradesmen and a few curious gazes, the 5G on my phone never drops.

When the tourist board invited me to come and see what life on the Faroes is like, I’ll admit I wasn’t exactly fizzing with excitement. It’s not somewhere I knew much about, besides the controversial dolphin hunt that makes headlines when it happens a few times each year.

In my ignorance, I dismissed the Faroe Islands as a bleaker version of places I was already familiar with. I’m Irish; I know a thing or two about rain and grass.

Instead, I discovered a fascinating nation with deep ties to the nature that sustains it, a quirky food scene rooted in native ingredients, and a unique approach to tourism that protects the land and local communities.

In a world gripped by uncertainty, the Faroes feel truthful and real.

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‘Closed for Maintenance’

Part of what sets this rocky outcrop apart is a willingness to do something few places could conceive of: closing to tourists.

The brainchild of a Danish creative agency, the ‘Closed for Maintenance’ concept shuts the Faroe Islands to general visitors for one weekend each year.

In their place are 100 volunteers who, in exchange for bed, board and a locally-made hat, come to repair footpaths, paint signs and make trails safe for the next tranche of hikers.

The project may only happen once a year (it’s already been and gone, in May), but part of the vision for tourism in the Faroes is to find a balance between the well-being of the 54,000 people who call these islands home, and providing a good experience for visitors.

Everywhere I go, signs remind you to ‘keep off the grass’ and show virðing, the Faroese word for respect.

On the mist-shrouded cliffside of Hvithamar, the Faroes’ showstopper viewpoint, the raw beauty of this wild and unspoiled landscape is fully revealed.

Dwarfed by fjords and mountains that stretch into the clouds, I feel like a microscopic crumb in an infinite universe. It’s so striking, I wouldn’t dream of leaving anything but footprints (on the designated pathways) behind.

National revival

In 2015, an economic crisis in the Faroe Islands had a strange effect.

As financial difficulties brought an end to an import craze that had blighted almost every domestic industry, people began to look inwards. Faroese culture entered a renaissance, in knitting, in food, and in music.

In Tórshavn, the chocolate box capital that’s more small town than city, there are no high street chains or big fast food names. Instead, there’s Tutl, an independent record store run by local musicians; Roks, a hip fine dining restaurant that serves things like sea urchin and vanilla-flavoured scallops; and Gudrun & Gudrun, a high-end wool clothing boutique run by two Faroese women.

Like many indigenous languages around the world, the Faroese language is enjoying a revival.

For Lea Kampmann, a young singer-songwriter from Vestmanna who performs in Faroese, it’s about identity. ‘I write about my experiences, about my grandmother who is no longer with us. Doing it in the language makes me feel connected to who I am and where I come from,’ she says.

Life imitates art. In Kirkja, the village where I meet Leene on Fugloy, young relatives of ageing residents are coming for summer. Some are even experimenting with new methods of farming.

‘Life is coming back,’ she says. ‘If it had been up to my generation, we would have turned this place into a ghost town, but now it’s different. The young feel the connection.’

Dinner with locals

At Anna and Óli Rubeksen’s elegant house in Velbastadur, I experience Heimablidni, a traditional Faroese supper club in the home of a resident. All over the islands are people who host guests from around the world for dinner, and I’m breaking bread (or in this case, wind-dried mutton) with two of the best.

As Anna prepares a feast of prawns, lamb and honey-roasted potatoes, Óli pours me a gin mixed with Faroese rhubarb liqueur, and we chat about why they do what they do. ‘For us, it’s about possibilities,’ he says. ‘If we say no, and we don’t welcome people into our home, ok, that’s it. End of story. If we say yes, you never know what might come of it, or who you might meet.’

Over a four-course dinner served with locally brewed pilsner, I ask about the backlash to the Grindadrap, the hunt that has led animal rights campaigners to call for a boycott of the islands.

Hundreds of whales and dolphins are slaughtered in Faroese waters each year, with the meat divided among villages. Internationally, it’s widely condemned, but in the Faroes, public opinion is divided. Some see it as archaic and inhumane, others as a practice that has been part of the Faroese way of life for centuries.

Anna raises a double standard: if you slaughtered pigs in the open in the UK, people would be talking about it in the same way. But they don’t, because it’s done behind closed doors.

It’s a fair point. Approximately 11 million pigs are killed in the UK each year, according to the RSPCA.

Identity and isolation

In the taxi from the Rubeksen’s to the Hilton Garden Inn, the only international hotel on the islands, I get talking to my driver, Magnus.

He’s surprised to hear I made the journey to Fugloy. All told, it’s about two-and-a-half hours, by car and then boat. But in 57 years on the Faroes, he’s never been.

‘Young people are interested, I suppose,’ he muses. ‘In any case, the young people here are proud of where they come from.’

They have reason to be. I think of all I have seen in my time on the islands. The breathtaking Múlafossur waterfall, crashing down into a tidal lagoon. The hidden hamlets, where grass-roofed houses sit in the cradle of mighty fjords. The resilience of tiny communities that seem to exist on the edge of the Earth.

In times like these, it’s easy to see the appeal of this peace and isolation.

As Leene says, ‘here, we only worry about what we can see.’

The world might forget about the Faroes, but these islands know exactly who they are.