June is the month of the eiderdown harvest on Vigur, the island I call home in the north west of Iceland. Collecting eiderdown is extremely labour intensive so any and all are welcome to join us and help out with the work and we are very grateful for the company as well as the help.
This year we were joined by Sophia Scott of Groundtruth Global along with her family. Sophia is making a film about the Arctic and came to film something of the traditional eiderdown harvest on Vigur. It is hard work but rather addictive. There’s something about spending your days getting to know the ducks, surrounded by puffins and the peaceful chaos of nature up here on the Arctic Circle.
The filming was successful, as was the harvest, collecting well over 300kg of down from common eider nesting across the island. Now all we have to do is clean it…but that is another story…