For countless generations they have lived with the birds. They have watched for them arriving in the spring, prepared safe places for them to nest, and harvested the precious eider down when they leave. The people of the Vega community know the birds. Today this small island group has a population of about 1230, but they have been inhabited ever since the islands first emerged from the ocean at the end of the last Ice Age some 11,000 years ago, as evidenced by the dwellings and flint tools of the early hunter-gatherers discovered in recent years. Now the way of life, the story of the eider down, and the exquisite products filled with it, have brought Vega UNESCO world heritage status.
Other residents of the island include the shy roe deer, the elk, the white-tailed sea eagles, the curlews, the greylag geese, the black-backed gulls and the cuckoos, calling their hopeful spring call through the woods. It is delightful to walk with the local people and learn about the natural environment, the fishing and the traditional ways in which the cod is preserved, to visit the museum, or to drop in for a chat and delicious waffles.
By contrast, sailing deep into Vistenfjord takes us far inland in mainland Norway, a masterpiece of navigation by the bridge team negotiating tight bends and shallow bars. The beauty and tranquillity of the fjord here is profound. Steep slopes of rock lead to snowy peaks towering above, more than 3000 feet high. Here and there are dotted summer homes, nestling along the shore or in tiny clearings in the woods. The soft jingling of bells tells us that a handful of brown-fleeced sheep are grazing with their lambs nearby among the trees. Meltwater from the mountains comes tumbling down the rock faces, forming waterfalls as it empties into the fjord below. And the local people, whether encountered on land or water, are gracious as ever.
A Zodiac cruise took us even further into the interior, through exciting narrow rocky passages to a series of idyllic lakes, where spotted sandpipers dabbled busily along the shores and gulls and oystercatchers occasionally flitted overhead. Norway as we would dream that it might be.
