(birds chirping) (insects humming)
(panpipe music)
Landscapes of bewitching beauty.
Unique, species rich, exemplary,
because something extraordinary is happening here.
These natural habitats remain in tact
only because humans use and shape them.
A new pact with nature.
(animals hooting)
(gentle music)
Way up in northern Norway, just below the polar circle,
people have always had to scrape a living
out of the austere natural world.
For a few months every year, the Vega Archipelago here is
also home to wild eider ducks.
(ducks clucking)
They have entered into a unique alliance with humans.
The fishermen and farmers cultivate the small islands
and protect the eider ducks in order later
to harvest the feather down from the nests
once the birds have left.
(duck clucking)
But this unparalleled symbiosis of man
and animal is now under threat.
Can the Norwegians find a way into the future?
At the beginning of April, the eider ducks return
to the polar circle from their winter
quarters in southern Norway.
(water lapping)
The males with their black and white marking,
and the inconspicuous speckled brown females
often travel in large flocks.
In the coming months, they will search for food
in the shallow coastal waters for themselves
and their young.
(ducks clucking)
But their breeding places on land are largely unprotected.
Their down-padded nests are exposed to wind and weather.
(seagulls screeching) (duck clucking)
And their enemies are lurking close by.
Great black-backed gulls are just waiting
for the right moment to steal an egg.
And the sea eagle has its sights on the fledglings
and also on the adult ducks.
At first sight the low-lying islets
of the Vega Archipelago provide little protection.
(birds chirping)
It's human beings that make the difference here
for the eider ducks.
For centuries they have offered
the wild birds an exceptional welcome.
(banging) (chattering)
By the end of April, Irna and Ivan Ervagor start setting
up accommodation for the arrival of the animal visitors.
Many of the simple wooden shelters have suffered
through the winter months and need repair.
On their part of the small island of Lanan alone,
there are over 100 little duck houses,
either in groups or as single apartments,
separate from the neighbors.
(seagulls squawking)
The other human inhabitants of Lanan are also working
on the eider duck housing.
They gather dry seaweed from the shore,
destined for the bird accommodation.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Hildegunn Nordum was born and raised here 'til she was 16.
She comes back to the island every spring,
and stays throughout the summer
to look after the ducks.
(speaking in a foreign language)
When March arrives, we pack our bags
and can't wait to get here.
It's a good feeling to head for home.
We never know in advance what we'll find.
It's always exciting year after year.
When we come to Lanan in April,
the ducks will soon be arriving.
And when the birds arrive,
they need to find a safe and snug
nesting place waiting for them.
Hildegunn and her husband Eric pad
out the boxes with dried seaweed.
A total of nine families return to Lanan in spring
to prepare hatcheries fro the eider ducks.
The humans also benefit from it.
If they can persuade the animals to breed
on their land, they get
to keep the valuable down afterwards.
The people fit out over 1200 nests with seaweed
for the birds, even under their own houses.
There's room here for nearly 20 animals.
Eric? Yeah?
Any abandoned eggs that Hildegunn comes
across from the previous year are buried outside
to avoid attracting nest robbers.
It's hard work but it bonds people together and with nature.
(speaking in a foreign language)
(gentle music)
(water lapping)
About 15 kilometers away in the south of the archipelago,
one man is out and about in all weathers.
He's the last islander to live more
or less like his forebears the whole year round,
as a farmer and fisherman.
He too was born here.
But unlike the others Oystein Ludvigsen has spent virtually
his whole life here, on Hysvaer,
a group of islands within the Vega Archipelago.
At low tied he can walk from his house
to some of the neighboring islands
without getting his feet we.
When the tide's in, he uses simple wooden bridges
to get to his sheep.
(cattle bell rattling)
They're an ancient Norwegian breed
and used to staying outside all the year round.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Once they've exhausted the grass in one area,
Oystein ferries them across to the next island,
as he has done for decades.
(lamb bleating)
(speaking in a foreign language)
We've always worked here on the farm.
As a boy I was allowed to sheer the sheep
and help in the cowshed.
I could bake and cook meals.
In summer we collected gull and goose eggs.
I've had a fantastic life, perfect.
On Oystein's island too people prepare nests
for the ducks.
His partner, Snefrid and her grandson, Marcus,
are visiting, and bringing a stone shelter up to scratch.
But they are the only ones who gather seaweed here
and setup duck houses.
(speaking in a foreign language)
The island shows how difficult it is
to keep up the eider duck tradition.
(speaking in a foreign language)
In the '60s there were still
nearly 2,000 eider ducks breading here.
Then it fell to 50 or 60 ducks at times.
By then, we were the only ones
that still have duck nests.
All the others had stopped.
(ominous music)
That endangered a unique tradition.
So unique in fact that in 2004 the United Nations declared
the Vega Archipelago a World Heritage Site.
The Archipelago is named after its main island, Vega.
This is where most people live.
There are streets, cars and shops, but no eider ducks.
There's too much disturbance from the 1,200 inhabitants,
and too much danger from cats,
important minx and other predators.
(boats rattling) (water lapping)
So the eider ducks nest at a distance,
on one of the 6,500 or so small
and tiny islands in the archipelago.
At one time, down from the eider ducks was harvested
on 17 of the islands.
At the turn of the millennium,
that had reduced to just three.
Lanan, where Hildegunn and the other duck guardians live
in summer, is the duck island par excellence.
Here, about 20 kilometers north of the main island,
the families have succeeded in maintaining the tradition.
The birds return here in great numbers,
year after year, still.
(flag flapping) (birds chirping)
By the beginning of May, everything on Lanan is ready.
All the duck guardians can do now is just wait.
(birds squawking)
(speaking in a foreign language)
Weather permitting they meet up on the jetty every morning
for stockfish and beer.
In the winter they live on the main island
or the mainland nearby or even in the far off capital Oslo.
But their work together for the ducks brings
them back again and again.
By now the wild ducks are like close acquaintances,
very much so in some cases.
Hildegunn and the other guardians have noticed
that some of the ducks return to the same little huts
or nesting boxes year after year.
(speaking in a foreign language)
We have two eider ducks
which always arrive together,
year after year, on the same day.
They nest over there, right next to each other,
and they leave again with their chicks at the same time.
We think they're sisters who stick together.
We call them the Foranda Ladies.
Eider ducks can live to be 25,
and some of them really do have distinct
personalities of their own.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Last year, 10 ducks brooded here in the shed.
One of them is quite special.
One year we noticed that one duck had more
and more eggs in her nest.
We watched her and saw how she went
to the other nests and stole eggs.
She'd take the egg in her beak,
carry it to her own nest and lay it under her.
After that we called her Spiteful Sara.
In May I keep looking to see if Spiteful Sara is back.
As soon as she arrives, she digs a hollow
to mark out where she wants to brood.
Then she'll come back after a day or two and lay an egg.
Then I know Spiteful Sara is back.
(tentative music)
Just when the waterfowl will occupy their nests
the people can never predict, even after all these years.
(water whooshing)
The see small groups of ducks gathering off their island,
but they don't come ashore yet.
The right moment hasn't arrived
for them to leave the water where they're safe.
Then in early May, in the middle
of the night, the time has come.
(ducks cooing)
They gather in large groups off the island.
Then the first ducks come ashore.
They've mated on the water offshore.
The black and white males come with their partners,
but it's the females who decided where they'll nest.
While she checks to see if last year's brooding place
still meets requirements, he waits patiently by.
When the females begin to brood the drakes leave
the island and move on to molt.
Then in September they will return
to migrate south with the females.
(winds howling)
(ducks clucking)
The female eiders line the nest
with down plucked from their breast.
Then they incubate the eggs for four weeks.
At this time, Oystein Ludvigsen is busy further south,
checking his gill nets.
Like his forefathers, he earns part
of his living from fishing.
In his small boat, which has seen better days,
he's often out and about in the shallow waters
between the islands.
When the weather's good, he also ventures
out to the open sea.
It's mainly cod that he's after,
but he also catches haddock and halibut.
(wheel squeaking)
Every spring in the past, he used
to sail the 200 kilometers north
to the Lofoten Islands to join up
with large groups of fisherman.
These days he prefers to spare himself the weeks
of grinding work.
Here he can set his own working routine.
Even though fishing in the archipelago is no longer
as rewarding as it used to be.
It's declined a lot.
There are only four or five fisherman now.
Those who fish the whole year round
and me who does it as an additional income.
It really got very difficult.
(water whooshing)
Why are the fish stocks dwindling?
One man is researching the causes.
Hartvig Christie is a marine biologist
from the Norwegian Institute for Water Research.
He's been studying the ecosystems on the coasts
of Norway for decades.
(water swooshing)
Every year, he and his colleagues dive
in the underwater world of the Vega Archipelago.
He's especially interested in how the kelp forests develop
in the shallow waters.
(gurgling)
(light music)
Fifty years ago, kelp forests still covered a considerable
part of the seabed around Vega.
They are among the world's most productive ecosystems.
Because of their biodiversity,
they're sometimes called the rainforests of the seas.
They are the nursery for many species of fish.
But in the 1970s, in what's now the world heritage region,
dramatic changes took place.
The green urchins spread rapidly in the archipelago
within a few years for reasons still unknown.
Hartvig Christie has clear memories of this radical shift.
All at once everything
around the islands was covered
with sea urchins, packed solid.
These sea urchins feed on nearly everything
that grows on the seabed and have done
for 45 or 50 years now.
The whole seaweed jungle has virtually disappeared
from the seabed.
That's had major effects on the fish stocks.
In fact, on all life in the sea.
This was a severe blow for the traditional way
of life in the archipelago.
Hartvig Christie estimates that the destruction
of the seaweed forests in northern Norway has led
to the loss of 300 to 400 thousand tons of fish a year.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Cod fishing almost ground to a halt.
Here in the archipelago alone that costs
around 1 1/2 million euros a year.
(flagpole rattling)
(light music)
One reason why life
on the small islands has changed so drastically
since Oystein the fisherman was a child here.
Back then there were still 70 people living
on his Hysvaer group of islands.
There was a shop, a post office,
even a school attended by the children
from the surrounding islands.
Nowadays Hysvaer is like a ghost town.
Derelict boat houses, and the tiny school stands empty.
And there's been nothing to buy
in the shop for a long while.
(speaking in a foreign language)
When Oystein tells how he used
to help carry the food deliveries
from the jetty to the shop with half a caramel toffee
as his reward, it's a story from a bygone age
for his grandchildren.
It wasn't only the young people
who left for larger towns and cities.
It was a total collapse.
Also because the Norwegian state decided
the islands should no longer be inhabited.
Everyone should go.
There were fewer and fewer people.
In the end there was only one neighbor
who lived over there, and my mother, my father and me.
Then in 1988 my parents and the neighbor moved
to the mainland.
There was only me left.
It looks like the end
for the ancestral way of life, with all its traditions.
And for the landscape as well.
(speaking in a foreign language)
But there is still hope.
Gisle Ebbesen and his wife, Turid run a farm
with dairy cows on the main island.
Like most of the inhabitants there,
they didn't care about the life and culture
outside in the archipelago for the longest time.
Only when the area attained the status
of a UNESCO World Heritage Site did they realize
that the traditions and landscape
here were unique in the world.
Together with their daughter, Henriette,
they're an example of new generations
who are once again venturing out to small islands.
(speaking in a foreign language)
Like all the islands here, Stor-Emarsoy has been
in private ownership for centuries.
In 2006 Turid and Gisle contacted the owner
and offered to take care of the
only remaining house on the island.
The former farmhouse had stood empty for decades
and was in a pitiful state.
Turid and Gisler began to repair it,
and made plans for a new incarnation.
(door squeaking)
Without further ado, they decided to turn it
into a living museum, offering visitors a journey
through time, back to the 19th century.
At first we were only looking
for a holiday cottage for us.
But once we had the chance to buy the island,
we decided to make it a place that showed
how people lived here in the past.
The world heritage
status was the starting signal.
That was in 2004.
It was a hard life out here in the past.
That culture has rather fallen into oblivion.
So we want to try and bring it to light again
so the people who live here will be better appreciated.
(light organ music)
When Gisle plays the Northland anthem
on the old organ, it's also a sign of the pride
that people are rediscovering in their culture.
(clock chiming)
(speaking in a foreign language)
My parents gave me the inspiration
since they often took me out to the islands.
I help bring the cows and sheep out.
I collected gull and goose eggs with my father.
That's a lasting influence.
I'd like to make my contribution.
I want what's here to have a future.
So 22 year old Henriette is set
on being the youngest duck guardian in the archipelago.
For the first time in decades, nesting boxes
for eider ducks are being set up on this island again.
(hands brushing)
How long it will take, though, for the ducks
to come back, she doesn't know.
(water lapping)
(gentle music)
In the course of May and June the days get longer,
the sun is warmer, and the wild flowers burst into bloom.
(birds tweeting)
On the main island with its fertile soil,
agriculture is in full swing.
The wetlands on the main island,
and the broad shallows in the archipelago
are a paradise for seabirds.
It's the time when most species like the oyster catchers
and the common gulls give birth to their young.
(birds squawking)
With acrobatic ariel maneuvers
sea swallows pursue their prey.
The warm sun invites common ringed plovers
to enjoy a bathe in the sea.
And under the watchful eyes of their parents,
the fledglings of the Eurasian golden plover go exploring.
The 21st June, the longest day of the year,
it's shortly after midnight, before the sun disappears
beyond the horizon, to rise again just half an hour later.
On white nights like these, it never really gets dark.
High summer out on the small islands.
Safe and sound in their manmade refuges,
the offspring of the eider ducks announce their arrival.
(birds twittering)
The female spends up to four weeks incubating their eggs.
In that time she's hardly left the nest
and has lost more than a third of her body weight.
When the chicks are finally hatched,
they're kept warm in the nest until their plumage is dry.
(duck clucking)
The duck guardians on Lanan are
especially vigilant at this time.
Hildegunn and the others do the rounds
of the animals every day.
Of the 1,200 nests they check the ones
where the ducks are still inside.
(door creaking)
(speaking in a foreign language)
The ducks are used to Hildegunn
and aren't disturbed by her visit.
(duck clucking)
(speaking in a foreign language)
They even seem to understand that far from being a threat,
the humans are there to look after them.
The young eider ducks are not facing
the most dangerous phase of their lives.
The unprotected trek to the sea.
(ominous music)
The great black backed gull is an omnivore
and is just waiting to prey upon the young animals.
As is the sea eagle circling above.
(birds chirping)
(ducks clucking)
Any duckling that wonders too far away
from its mother or ignores her warning calls is in danger.
(birds tweeting)
(wings flapping)
Hildegunn also watches over the passage to the sea,
and intervenes if necessary to scare
off the voracious gulls and other birds of prey.
(Hildegunn shouting)
This time everything went well.
On the water the chicks are protected in the group.
(wind blustering)
But sometimes the duck guardians have
to intervene more directly.
(speaking in a foreign language)
These ducklings have become separated from their mother.
Together with her grandchildren,
who are here for a week, Hildegunn tries
to give the little waterfowls a second chance.
(birds tweeting)
She makes a new nest for the ducklings in a duck house,
in the hope that the little ones can be safe here
for the time being.
Then perhaps an adult duck might hear
the duckling's cries and adopt them.
Eider ducks are very social animals
and often share the job of looking after their young.
(speaking in a foreign language)
It's actually better
if we don't get involved, but sometimes we just have to.
It takes sometime before the young are big enough
and the gulls can't catch them.
One duck after another leads her offspring
down to the sea.
They won't return to the nests until next year.
Now the families on Lanan set about their harvest.
From the empty nests, they collect the down
that the mother ducks had used to line them.
This is when it pays off that the nests were in the dry.
All Hildegunn needs to do is remove
the shells of the duck eggs.
On occasion ducks also nest in the open.
Then the down is much more soiled.
In any case rough cleaning has to be done
as soon as possible to preserve the quality of the down.
It takes a duck guardian a couple of weeks
to clean a kilogram of down.
First it's dried, shaken and roughly cleaned.
And then carefully plucked clean once again.
On calm days, everywhere on Lanan the people sit
outside their houses always
with a ball of down in their hands.
First they take care of their own harvest.
The last step is then often done as teamwork.
The fine down remains caught on
what's known as the down harp.
Dirt and bigger feathers are sieved off.
This works because of the tiny barbs
in the structure of eiderdown which hold it together.
They're also responsible for its
exceptional insulation capacity.
It's not just the down that comes from Lanan
but the end products as well.
Duvets, pillows and gloves are handmade
by Hildegunn and the others.
(speaking in a foreign language)
To make just one duvet, Hildegunn needs the down
from 50 to 60 nests, and that comes at a price of course.
A down pillow costs 400 euros, a duvet, 6,000 euros.
The down harvested by all the families
on Lanan is enough for around 20 duvets a year.
Despite the high price, all the duvets are already sold
in advance before the season begins.
The duck guardians have only earned suck princely sums
since they've been on the internet
and can sell their down products throughout Norway
and the rest of the world.
(light music)
(birds twittering)
Fisherman, Oystein and his partner Snefrid
also enjoy the days of summer.
When there's little wind, they too sit outside
in the sun and clean the down.
But their harvest is only a fraction
of what Hildegunn and the others on Lanan bring in.
Their down doesn't go to the outside world,
but to friends and family every year.
Oystein has never earned much money from the ducks.
His main work is as a fisherman and farmer,
and summer is the time of the traditional haymaking.
On his rocky islet, that means hard manual labor.
The hay's the winter fodder for his sheep.
This traditional form of cultivation has shaped
the landscape of the archipelago.
Islands that are not grazed or mown
gradually return to scrubland.
On Oystein's island, though, the traditional triad
of fishing, farming and down harvesting is
probably nearing its end.
His daughter and grandchildren come and visit
but they don't want to live and work here.
(speaking in a foreign language)
No one will take over my farm.
They'd have to keep animals and go fishing.
That's too meager a life for them.
Everything here will disappear, that's for sure.
(birds squawking)
(bottles rattling)
Meanwhile on the island of Stor-Emarsoy,
Turid and Gisle's daughter Henriette
is looking to the future.
She spends part of the summer all alone
on her parents small island.
It's her project.
(speaking in a foreign language)
I've long dreamed of living out here,
to find out what it's like to live here.
Then a job offer from the World Heritage Centre
on Vega enabled me to live here, earn money,
and look after the eider duck nests.
An important part of her job is
to campaign for life out here.
She's documenting her summer project
with her video camera, taking photos,
and producing a sort of diary on social media.
(upbeat music)
She also presents her main purpose,
attracting the eider ducks to live here again.
For the first time in decades
new duck houses are being set up again on this island.
Even though there are only two
of the 27 new nesting boxes are being used
in this first year, Henriette sees her project as a success.
It's about making young people aware,
showing them that a young woman here wants
to maintain the tradition of the islands.
They should see that you can come here
to work with the eider ducks.
Life out here, though,
especially alone, is a daily challenge.
There's no fridge, no electricity and no gas connection.
Henriette heats the house and often cooks
with wood she's brought from the main island.
Making her own bread is very fulfilling.
The houses on the island that are
regularly occupied have much more in the way of comfort.
But comfort is not what Henriette is looking for.
It's exciting for the 22 year old
to find out how well she can cope
this far from civilization.
But when the weather's bad and she's confined
to the house, the days are very long.
(speaking in a foreign language)
It's been hard.
It's been lonely.
It's been good.
I've got to know myself.
And I've discovered how I have to live
to get through the days well.
I've tried to keep busy and that worked well.
I've really enjoyed it.
Fortunately, time and again,
summer in northern Norway shows its warm and pleasant side.
Then the archipelago just asks to be explored.
(exciting music)
Henriette always has her camera with her
to advertise what life out here has to offer.
She keeps trying out new routes
in the sheltered labyrinth among the islands.
She seldom goes swimming though.
Despite the enticing brilliant turquoise
of the water, at a temperature of 14 degrees at most,
it's a pleasure for only hardcore bathers.
(water lapping)
(birds twittering)
It's spectacularly beautiful, so Henriette
just can't understand why
more people aren't attracted out here.
Sustainable tourism would also help the islanders
to make a living.
That's not easy here.
Henriette's job is just for this one summer.
(camera beeping)
(birds flapping)
(water whooshing)
Boats now regularly bring tourists to Lanan at least.
Then most of the island inhabitants gather
at the jetty to welcome the visitors.
(speaking in a foreign language)
They're almost exclusively day trippers in summer
who want to see for themselves
what has raised the Vega Archipelago
to the status of a World Heritage Site.
People are only allowed to visit the islands
when no ducks are nesting there.
Strangers would be too much for the animals,
and at worst the ducks could leave their nests
and never come back.
So tourists have to settle for a short demonstration
of nest maintenance.
(speaking in a foreign language)
But the next attraction is already waiting.
In a converted hayloft, there are stories
from the history of the island.
(speaking in a foreign language)
And homemade down products.
The tourist business has become
an important economic mainstay.
The down harvest alone is not enough to provide a living,
especially on the other smalls islands
in the archipelago which have far fewer eider ducks.
Nevertheless, Hildegunn and her husband, Eric,
are pleased when the tourist boats casts off
and peace and quiet return.
Even if the peace sometimes brings
with it concern for the future.
It's hard to predict what will happen.
Even my parents didn't believe anyone would take
over the eider duck business but we've done it.
We have to see year by year how things go,
and do everything we can to ensure the
next generation gets involved,
and understands how important this work is.
(light music)
It needs young people as well
to involve themselves in the life
of this beautiful but remote and lonely region.
If this unique symbiosis between people
and animals is to survive.
And with it, the landscape that's shaped by it.
People need prospects for this unparalleled natural paradise
to have a future.
Is there was some way of staying here
and working with the eider ducks,
if there was a permanent job, I'd jump at it.
But it's not that easy.