Looking North

Audio

The Faroe Islands Podcast

Post author By Simon King
Post date December 4, 2019

When I told a colleague I was planning a trip to the Faroe Islands he had two questions for me: 1. Had I seen their insanely picturesque football fields? and 2. Did I know about The Faroe Islands Podcast? Both were news to me. By the time I learned about the podcast it was already nine years old, having begun in January 2009 after the journalist Matthew Workman noticed a visitor to his blog from a country he’d never heard of. It was all down the rabbit hole from there. The internet didn’t have that much content about the Faroe Islands back then, at least not in English, so Matthew started blogging and podcasting about it.

Tags faroe islands, fugloy, gekkur, podcast, television

Audio

The Latecomers

Post author By Simon King
Post date November 30, 2019

Fifty years ago, on November 12, 1969, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired The Latecomers, a sound documentary by Glenn Gould, the accomplished pianist who at that point in his career had stopped performing live in favor of studio recording. The latecomers in question are from Newfoundland, the last Canadian province, which joined the federation just twenty years earlier. It’s produced in a unique style, which Gould called “contrapuntal radio,” a reference to his favored musical approach where numerous independent melodies are played simultaneously. In this case, he interweaves the voices of thirteen Newfoundlanders into overlapping and layered stories about solitude, politics, hard work, and identity. Interspersed, and at times overpowering these stories, is the sound of the ocean beating against the rocky shoreline. The waves are an organic through-line, ushering voices in and out of this non-linear collage. In our current era of highly produced podcasts and audio stories, this experimental radio piece from five decades ago holds up extremely well.

Tags canada, cbc, newfoundland, radio, solitude, storytelling

Websites

Faroese Postal Stories

Post author By Simon King
Post date November 27, 2019

Meinhard, the 3rd generation postal carrier on Skúvoy — Screenshot from the BBC story “Tales from the far-flung Faroes.” Photo by Christian Petersen.

There’s something wonderful about putting a name on a letter and knowing it will find its way to a remote destination, passing hand-to-hand until that person can open it. Of course today we send messages around the world in micro-seconds, but for me that only heightens my wonder of the physical post. It’s not just a technical feat, but a complex set of systems and people overcoming geography, weather, and Murphy’s law; there are many steps and many people holding that letter along the way. I want to share more about my love for the post, including how I started collecting Faroese stamps. But today I want to point you elsewhere, to a beautiful story the BBC published in 2018 called “Tales from the far-flung Faroes (The people who live on remote rocks in the North Atlantic) by Christian Petersen”

Tags faroe islands, fugloy, mailboat, mykines, postal service, resettlement, skuvoy

Movies

Life on Fugloy

Post author By Simon King
Post date November 24, 2019

The closest I got to Fugloy (on the left), standing on the eastern coast of Viðoy (2018).

We only had a week in the Faroe Islands, when we visited in summer of 2018, but I gained a good sense of the country by traveling to its farthest corners. We went to places at the extents of the cardinal directions, like the westernmost island of Mykines, home to a single village where fewer than a dozen people live year-round. We visited Suðuroy, the southernmost island, plunging downward through mountains to find the comparative metropolis of Sumba, housing 240 people at the bottom tip of the country. The northernmost settlement is Viðareiði, nestled in a mountain basin on the island of Viðoy, with stunning views of its neighboring isles to the west, their finger-like tips extended in procession. All of these are remote places, but nothing compared to the one point on the compass we didn’t manage to reach: the easternmost village of Hattarvík, on the island of Fugloy.

Tags documentary, faroe islands, ferry, fugloy, hattarvik, history, mailboat, population

Audio

Fair Folk

Post author By Simon King
Post date November 19, 2019

The Fair Folk podcast, hosted by Danica Boyce, is “devoted to bringing folk tradition to life” and features numerous episodes on the traditional music of Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and other places of interest to this blog. It’s not her first, nor her latest, but as an introduction to her work I would suggest The Wailing Of The Old Timers – Tvísöngur and Iceland’s Hidden Folk Music Past as an example of the deep research Danica shares with her listeners.

Tags faroe islands, history, iceland, music, podcast

Books

Last Places: A Journey to the North

Post author By Simon King
Post date November 18, 2019

Map of the North Atlantic — Map of the places visited by Lawrence Millman in Last Places: A Journey in the North

The concept behind Lawrence Millman’s book Last Places: A Journey to the North is such a perfect fit to my interests, and this blog, that I knew I had to read it. Millman endeavors to follow the trail of the Vikings, traveling from Norway to Newfoundland via Shetland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Greenland, mostly via sea and foot, camping along the way. It’s a personal travelog, from an opinionated and seasoned traveler with lots of stories to tell. It’s not his first time in any of these locations, which is perhaps what frees him up to seek the most remote, difficult, or forgotten corners of these already far flung islands.

Tags faroe islands, greenland, iceland, labrador, lighthouses, newfoundland, resettlement, shetland, vikings

Blog

When a trip is just the beginning

Post author By Simon King
Post date November 4, 2019

Photo of an island — The uninhabited island of Lítla Dímun, in the Faroe Islands.

There are places you go where the purpose of the trip is to say you’ve been, to others, or to yourself. Perhaps you have a bucket list, of places you’d regret if you never saw them with your own eyes, and checking things off is the goal. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of travel, but it tends to have a beginning and an end, a wonderful experience that is now a cherished memory. But there’s another kind of travel, where the places you go awaken something inside of you. The trip is just the start, a catalyst for continued discovery of a country, a geography, a history, or a culture. These places are sparks: of fascination, of discovery, of pathways for learning that may have no end. That’s the kind of travel I love, and this blog was born out of a desire to share those journey’s with you. I’ve found my travel muse by looking north, to the islands of the North Atlantic.