Litla Dimun (Faroe Islands)

Between Norway and Iceland are the Faroe Islands. Between some of these scattered islands is Litla Dimun. With tall, vertical cliffs plunging into the ocean, and a squeezed conical shape that terminates in an abrupt flat top, Litla Dimun looks like the tip of a carpentry pencil jutting from the sea. The island is uninhabited, but, ironically, has its own unique sense of culture. Often, the island wears a little cloud as a hat. The island has been deemed an “Important Bird Area” by Birdlife International (do they have anything else to talk about?). A Scandinavian Important Bird Area is not to be confused with an English Important Bird Area – which was a nickname for Buckingham Palace during the Queen’s reign. Litla Dimun is home to a number of sheep, which raises a burning question: what? The sheep are kept there for part of the year, and gathered in autumn, at great expense to their owners. The weather has to be absolutely perfect, or the waves will smash the boats against the cliffs. Dozens of people form a chain around the island, scale the cliffs, encircle the sheep, hogtie them, and lower them in nets to fishing boats. The sheep are then taken back to the mainland where dockworkers make fun of the fishermen for being terrible at their jobs. The sheep are gathered and redistributed to their owners, and I’m going to let the source material do the rest of the work on this: “A few sheep escape the gathering, and from time to time these are shot.”