The duo's most committing crossing brought them to Mykines, a flake of land on the southern edge of the archipelago that is home to 10 permanent residents and one of the world's densest populations of seabirds, including a quarter-million puffins and hundreds of thousands of fulmars, petrels, and kittiwakes. The island is an obligatory stop for the few hardy tourists who visit the Faroes, but Fletcher and Stirling came when no ferry was in port and had it all to themselves. "We rode all that coastline," Fletcher says, "though not always so close to the edge."
Norse Saga
In the Faroe Islands, nothing is flat, the wind blows hard or not at all, and a human-powered crossing demands any means necessary
The adventure began with an image David Fletcher couldn’t place: A landscape of brilliant greens and sheer cliffs falling away to a white-capped sea, with a quality of light the Australian photographer and filmmaker couldn’t get out of his head. The caption was little help. The Faroe Islands. Where the hell is that? he thought. And then, Can you ride a bike there?
Fletcher found the islands on a map of the North Atlantic, triangulated midway between Iceland, Norway, and Scotland. They’re home to 50,000 people, descendants of Norse seafarers who settled the islands in the ninth and tenth centuries. That lineage is clear in the Faroese language, little changed from that of the old Norse sagas, and in the islanders’ tradition of living close to the land and sea. Those elements are inseparable in the Faroes, eighteen volcanic islands that fit together like shards of a broken plate, the rocky fragments separated by narrow fjords and topped with flowing green pastures.
The maps and satellite photos seemed to reveal a landscape in which
600 words to go
You’re just getting to the good part.
This story — and 41 issues of them — opens with a subscription.
Either one picks up right where you left off.
Join 7,000+ readers · Independently owned · Since 2008
Already a subscriber? Sign in
Adventure Journal — Print Quarterly
Stories like this, in your hands four times a year.
41 issues. 10 years. Independently owned. Printed on 70lb uncoated paper with a soft-touch cover, solar-powered, and shipped in a brown paper envelope. Free domestic shipping.
