Atlantica - 01.04.2006, Page 45

It’s spitting rain as I walk down Rektaragøta in Tórshavn, the capital of the archi-
pelago known to Anglophones as the Faroe Islands. I arrive at the Prime Minister’s
office and peek through one of the white-framed windows on a Saturday afternoon.
Stacks of paper piled neatly on a desk blur with the reflection of a blue-hulled trawler
in the harbor. There’s not even a hint of security: no guard, not even a fence sur-
rounding the red wooden building that was once a former warehouse.
It’s mid-March, and spring is fast-approaching – little yellow flowers are starting to
blossom from the sod roof of the Prime Minister’s office. Life in the Faroes revolves
around the weather.
Or the sheep slaughtering schedule. Sheep still outnumber people by 20,000 in
these 18 islands of the Atlantic between Iceland and Scotland. There are 17 tunnels
and 925 kilometers of paved roads in the Faroes, and all roads are shared with the
sheep. In fact, if you accidentally injure or kill one while you’re driving, your car’s
sheep insurance will cover it. Depending on the sheep’s age and sex, the farmer
receives appropriate compensation, for example, about $400 USD for a mother sheep,
or $250 for a sheep older than six.
A photographer and I visited 53 villages on seven islands over the course of four
days in mid-March, a season of blossoming daffodils and 12 hours of sunlight in the
Faroes. We logged 820 kilometers on our rental car’s odometer, approximately 40
more than if you were to swim from the Faroes’ airport to Reykjavík. That sounds
like a lot – and it is – but there aren’t any roads circling the individual islands. To many
villages, it’s basically an out-and-back drive. And while most villages have a bus stop,
the schedules are erratic, and both seasonally and day-of-the-week dependent.
If you’re an adventurous type and don’t mind hiking in the rain, perhaps the
best way to get around, at least in summer, is on foot – there are loads of trails that
traverse the mountains from village to village. But make sure time is on your side.
Visitors often refer to the Faroes as the “land of maybe.” The weather is fickle year-
round. Maybe you’ll take a walk, maybe not. Maybe you’ll take the ferry to Mykines,
maybe not.
THE CAPITAL
Downtown Tórshavn, the Faroes’ capital, looks and feels a little bit like a seaside
town in New England, with damp, salty air, boxy wooden homes and clusters of tiny
yellow flowers sprouting from hairline cracks in the sidewalks. Twenty-somethings
and GenXers sit at window tables in Gallarí Jinx, a hip local café, drinking coffee and
sharing generous slices of apple pie with their friends. Búi Dam, 26, who is Faroese
breakout diva Eivør Pálsdóttir’s former guitarist and a children’s book writer, sits in a
smoky corner with a steaming latte and his G4 laptop, editing his latest manuscript.
He tells me how life in the Faroes is sort of caught in a netherworld between the
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