To the east of Eysturoy are a cluster of six islands, arranged like parallel fingers running north-south amidst saltwater fjords. Their narrow landmass is lined by steep and magnificent ridges, while the villages sit in the bowls and troughs between mountain peaks, or in the rare coves and harbors that lie sheltered from the swell of the open Atlantic. These islands, the farthest from the capital and the most northeastern of the archipelago, are what the Faroese call the Northern Islands (Norðoy) - and even in this strange land, they seem to be a world unto themselves. Gone are the idyllic pastures and limnic valleys of Vágar, the rolling hillsides of Streymoy, or the broad highlands of Eysturoy. On these narrow isles, the topography is profound, and excepting the major port town of Klaksvík, the human settlements are small and seem to all but cling to steep cliff faces above the sea, on which their livelihoods utterly depend.
The Northern Islands are not as isolated as they were in olden times, when they could only be reached after a long journey by boat, or a series of overland and inter-island ferries from the capital. The highway now tunnels beneath the sound between Eysturoy and the neighboring island of Borðoy, such that we can leave our apartment in Norðragøta and be in Klaksvík within fifteen minutes; the Faroes’ two largest cities are just over an hour and a half apart by car. Jane and I sleep in until 7 AM (missing sunrise by three whole hours) so that we can spend the day away from home, exploring the two islands of Borðoy and Kalsoy.
After a short drive through the town of Leirvík, with its car dealership, pizza parlour, and bowling alley, we enter a 4-mile undersea tunnel, lined by a colorful light display, that delivers us to the hillside above Klaksvík. Klaksvík is the major population hub of the Northern Islands, and a center for fishing and commerce second only to the capital. It is situated in concentric rings overlooking a broad, semicircular bay on the north side of Borðoy: the port district in the middle, followed by downtown shops, markets, banks, and football stadium, which are then surrounded by apartment buildings and residential suburbs on the hillside terraces. These are all flanked by refineries, quarries, and packing houses on the city’s outskirts. Facing north from anywhere in Klaksvík, the seaward view is dominated by the mountain ridges of Kalsoy to the northwest, which bisects the sound and obscures all view of Eysturoy, and the mammoth peak of Suður á Nakki, which looms over the city as if it were a smouldering volcano on an tropical island in the Pacific Rim. We drive to the docks, where we are first in line for the morning ferry run to Kalsoy. At promptly 8:30 AM, the mail boat Sam takes us onboard along with half a dozen other cars, and we hang around the deck for the breezy, 15-minute ride across the water.
On the other side, we disembark at Syðradalur (“Southern Dale”), a tiny cluster of houses at the southeastern tip of Kalsoy. From here, a single-lane asphalt road winds along the eastern coast of Kalsoy, passing through four mountain tunnels and connecting the island’s four small settlements. The skies are brilliantly blue and warm, and our passage north is accompanied by a flock of arctic terns riding the ocean breeze, their distinct snow-white plumage and deep forked tails glimmering under the mid-morning sun. At the north end of the island, after the long mountain tunnel beneath the bowels of Nestindar, we reach a bowl-shaped valley overlooking craggy sea cliffs, on top of which the village of Trøllanes clings with its cluster of houses, two small farms, a smithy, a derelict church and one-room schoolhouse. The village, for all its remoteness, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the Faroes - the farms are listed are far back as the 1500s in the islands’ landholding records, and the settlement itself probably dates back centuries farther. Its name (“Troll Peninsula”) derives from olden legends, which state that the valley was once haunted by trolls from the surrounding mountains, who would regularly descend into the village and terrorize the locals. One such night, the elderwoman of the village, being infirm and unable to flee, hid beneath her living room table as pandemonium unfolded around her. She prayed aloud for Christ the Savior to protect her, upon which the monsters abruptly dispersed and returned into the hills, never to be seen again.
We park our car beside the small schoolhouse and trudge north, past a sheep gate and up a muddy embankment, onto a peninsula of steep green slopes - the land of the trolls. The rolling hillsides take us toward the lighthouse on the headland of Kallur, at the northern tip of Kalsoy. The walking path, which essentially follows sheep tracks, takes us past old stone foundations where shielings or shepherd's huts once stood, overlooking the ocean and the outlying islands looming like massive ships in the distance. On the way, we pass flocks of sheep sunning lazily in the dung-spotted grass, and the odd glacial erratic, much too large and too far downslope to have been cast down from the towering cliffs above us. At the end of the peninsula, we climb one last series of dirt steps up to the small beacon, which stands atop a triangular ridge that drops away to the sea in three directions. Beyond the lighthouse, Jane and I navigate a narrow dirt ridge that descends then climbs to the very tip of the island - again, not for the faint of heart. Here at the edge of land, we can see for miles around us - to the Northern Islands, to Eysturoy and the familiar figures of Risin and Kellingin, and to the north shore of Streymoy far beyond. After we pose for photos, I take pictures of Jane as she scrambles back to the lighthouse, her figure dwarfed by the precipitous seaward slopes and the titanic mountain face of Borgarin, which lords over the landscape.
After a short rest on the shoulder of the headland, we make the hour-long walk back to Trøllanes. We visit the schoolhouse turned community center for a bathroom break, then stroll into the village, following posted signs to the “Kiosk at the End of the World” - a little trailer shed selling snacks, drinks, frozen treats, and locally cured and dried lamb and lamb sausages. Upon our arrival, a woman from the house next door, busy gardening in only a bra and a pair of blue jeans, puts on a shirt and comes to tend to the cash register. “Hello!” she says cheerfully. “Beautiful weather today!” We say good morning and each pick out an ice cream bar from the freezer. Treats in hand, we sit at the top of the cliffs, above a series of stone steps leading down to a rocky landing, and watch as the surf pounds on the concrete below.
Back in the car, we return through the mountain tunnel, to the next valley to the south and the village of Mikladalur (“Great Dale”), the largest of Kalsoy’s four settlements. Before the road tunnel linked the two villages in the 1980s, a traveler between Trøllanes and Mikladalur would have to make the dangerous traverse over Nestindar - the island’s highest peak. The mountain trail would be all but impassable in the winter, and any inclement weather would roil the strait, making travel by boat a life-threatening affair at either of the villages’ cliffside landings. Such as it was, these neighboring villages spent centuries separated from one another through vast stretches of the year, their inhabitants eking out a lonely subsistence from the temperamental sea and the small pockets of arable land beneath the mountains. Today, a public bus runs up and down the length of the island several times a day, delivering commuters who ride the ferry to and from work in Klaksvík. Life has changed significantly here in the outer reaches of the Faroes - for the better, I suspect most of the Faroese would say.
Mikladalur, too, is surrounded by several farms with outfields stretching to the foot of the mountains, including a small pine plantation (the first trees we have seen during the entire trip), which we drive past as we come down the hill into the valley. We park at a small turnoff just above the village and walk down among the turf-roofed houses, along narrow gravel lanes. We pass by several hjallur - ventilated wooden shacks, which function both for storing tools and for wind-curing lamb and mutton (skerpikjøt). Their door handles are fashioned from rams’ horns - an intriguing ornamental touch. Where the village houses meet the open ocean, a stream cascades over the edge of the cliff and into the ocean below. Beside the waterfall, we descend a series of stairs that lead to Mikladalur’s boat landing, little more than a battered basalt terrace exposed at low tide. There, on a prominent rock beside the sea, stands a bronze statue of the Kópakonan (“Seal Woman”), patina-stained after years of inundation by salt water. Many seagoing northern cultures, especially those of Scandinavia and the Atlantic isles, have tales about the sealfolk, mythological creatures capable of transforming from seal form into human form, said to be inhabited by the souls of drowned mariners. Perhaps it was the grey seal’s mournful, all-too-human bellowing at the water’s edge, or its long, silvery, hair-like fur, that was the inspiration for this shared body of folklore, which spans Scotland’s sylkies, Ireland’s merrows, Iceland’s marmennlar, and most famous of all, Denmark’s Little Mermaid. The Kópakonan is the Faroes’ analogue, and subject of one of the islands’ best known legends, which goes something like this:
In olden times, it was believed that seals were formerly humans who had died at sea - or perhaps voluntarily sought death in the vastness of the North Atlantic. Once a year, on the Twelfth Night, they were allowed to shed their sealskins and become human for a night, enabling them to leave the confines of the ocean, to frolic on land with reckless abandon. One year, a young farmer from the village of Mikladalur went down to the cliffside to watch the seals as they came ashore and danced on the rocks. There, he saw a beautiful woman with flowing dark hair, dancing with the other sealfolk beside the ocean. In an instant, he fell madly in love with this her, and knew that he must have her as his bride. Under cover of darkness, he crept down the rocks and stole her sealskin, hiding it away. At the end of the night, as sunrise began to light the rocky cliffs of Kalsoy, the other seals donned their skins and returned to the sea - but the woman could not find her skin, and thus could not complete the transformation. With no choice or recourse, she entered the village of Mikladalur, and was taken in by the young farmer, who she eventually married. They lived together for years and years, and had several children together. But no matter how much time passed, she would always find her thoughts returning to the sea - to memories of her native home, and to longing for her friends and family who dwelled in the watery depths.
All this time, the farmer kept the sealskin hidden in a chest beside the hearth, locked by a key that he kept on his person at all times. One day, the call for grindadráp (whale hunt) was raised off-shore, and a great commotion erupted in the village as every able-bodied man took to the boats to join the pursuit. In his haste, the farmer left the key at home. Realizing his mistake, he rowed with all his might back toward shore, sprinted up the stone steps to the village, and hurried back to his dwelling - but it was too late. The sealskin was gone, along with his wife. The rest of the house was nicely tidied, the children safely tucked in bed, and the hearthfire put out.
Some time later, the men of Mikladalur planned to make an expedition into one of the deep sea caverns along the island’s coast, to hunt the seals that lived there. The night before the hunt, the Kópakonan appeared before the young farmer in a dream, and pleaded with him not to kill the great bull seal residing in the depths of the cave, nor the two seal pups accompanying him, for those were her true husband and children. In a fit of selfishness, and with no love lost for his former wife, the farmer did not heed her message. He joined the other men the next morning, and they killed every seal that they could find in the cave. Upon returning home from a successful hunt, the men divided the spoils; the bull seal, and the flippers of the two young pups, went to the farmer himself. Later that evening, as the head of the large seal and the limbs of the small ones were stewing over the fire, there was a crash as the seal woman burst through the threshold in the form of a monstrous creature. Seeing her own flesh and blood stewing in the pot, she screamed out: “Here is the head of my husband with his broad nostrils, the hand of Hárek, and the foot of Fredrik! Now there shall be revenge, revenge on the men of Mikladalur! Some will perish at sea, and others plummet from the mountaintops; and so many shall die that the dead shall link hands to encircle the shores of Kalsoy!”
After she pronounced this curse, she vanished with a peal of thunder and was never seen again. But ever since that day, and even to this day, they say that men from the village of Mikladalur have met unusual fates at sea, their boats capsized by rogue waves or sudden squalls that emerge even out of calm blue skies. And likewise, the village shepherds, even climbing under clear weather, have suffered terrible and mysterious falls from the high peaks as they tried to gather their flock. So it is that the vengeful spirit of the Kópakonan continues to haunt Mikladalur to the present day - her statue at the water’s edge a somber reminder to every villager: not yet enough have died to encircle the long isle of Kalsoy.
It’s the noon hour when we return to the car. We sit in the back seat, enjoying our packed lunches (homemade sandwiches, fruit, and milk boxes) and watching the powerful northern winds ripple across the turf roofs of the village houses. Afterward, we drive back to the ferry landing at Syðradalur and take a short nap while awaiting our ride back to Borðoy. We return to Klaksvík in the mid-afternoon. Leaving the car in a parking lot by the docks, we walk around the city center, finding mostly shops for pricey wool products and tourist memorabilia. For an early dinner, we stop in at the Café Fríða, a hip little establishment with a patio overlooking the water, where we order an iced green tea and a platter of “Faroese tapas” - including a variety of delectable seafood snacks and local lamb. The fish salad with trout roe (below) is my personal favorite; the sandwiches of sliced fish and small shrimps, ordered by other patrons, also look delicious.
After our meal, we climb back in the car and drive to the outskirts of town. Ascending the slopes that form the western rim above Klaksvík, we turn up the long gravel drive nicknamed Ástarbreytin (“Lovers’ Lane”), a steep road that leads toward the peak of Klakkur - evidently a popular place for romantic sunsets and first dates. Our tiny Kia struggles as it climbs the rocky, uneven gradient, but we soon make it to a dirt lot beside the flat alpine meadow and pond of Hálsur. With our heavy jackets on, we pass through the sheep gate and make the short, 1-mile climb to the summit. At the top of Klakkur, we are treated to a full panorama of the islands below - Eysturoy beyond the mountains to our west, Kalsoy and Kunoy to the northwest and northeast, and the bulk of Borðoy to our east. The winds at the summit are sharp and powerful. Banks of marine fog and mist go hurtling by, briefly obscuring all view of the terrifying and dizzying heights below us. Jane helps me set up a timelapse of the clouds encircling Suður á Nakki like a crown, using the strait as a leading line into the horizon. After a half hour atop the mountain, wind-blasted and chilled to the bone, we make our descent back to the car, with the summits of Halgafelli and Háfjall rising before us to the south. The sun is beginning its gradual downward arc as we drive down the mountain, and the mountains cast a growing shadow over the port town. We return to Eysturoy through the undersea tunnel, and spend the evening relaxing and preparing for our last day of travel in the Faroes.
