Original subtitles

(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.