‘The Shepherd’s Life’ author swaps the Lake District for a remote island in the Norwegian archipelago and learns a profound lesson from one of the last 'duck women.'

‘She looked like a queen — not in her clothes or possessions, but in her defiant eyes. Anna had lived a rebellion against modernity. Her belief that it all still mattered was absolute, unshakeable — a gift from God.’ — James Rebanks, The Place of Tides

James Rebanks is the bestselling author of The Shepherd’s Life and English Pastoral, which detailed his life as a farmer in the Lake District. In his latest book, Rebanks is roaming far from home.

Fueled by a chance encounter from a decade ago, Rebanks travels to a remote island off the west coast of Norway, hoping to reconnect with Anna Måsøy, one of Norway’s last ‘duck women.’ In The Place of Tides, Rebanks recounts the spring and summer he spends with Anna and her friend, Ingrid, caring for the eider ducks that nest every year on Fjærøy (pronounced Fi-aroy), a tiny island in the Vega archipelago, just south of the Arctic circle.

At the start of his journey to Norway, Rebanks admits feeling ‘unmoored’ and frustrated, struggling with anger and exhaustion as he attempts to grapple with farming life in the wake of his father’s death and the increasing demands of modernity. He has left his wife and children in charge of the farm as he spends these several weeks away from home. By taking such a big step outside his usual life, Rebanks hopes to gain a fresh perspective and renewed sense of purpose as he learns more of Anna’s connection to her land and the ancient customs that guide her days on Fjærøy.

Although The Place of Tides does examine Rebanks personal story of self-discovery and renewal, the book is largely concerned with Anna’s story. As Rebanks writes in the book’s afterward, ‘I am only the storyteller. She is the story.’ His admiration for Anna shines through every page, and the development of their unlikely friendship is the glowing heart of the book.

At seventy years old, Anna is spending her last season as Fjærøy’s ‘duck woman.’ For years, she has travelled from her home on Vega to spend each spring preparing for the eider ducks to come, continuing the work of her ancestors. Anna builds nests, scares away predators, watches over the arrival and eventual departure of the ducks with their ducklings and finally harvests and cleans the down the birds pluck from their breasts to line their nests. This down is used to make the eiderdown quilts for which the region is famed.

This year, though, Rebanks worries that Anna is too unwell for the task. She is struggling with her blood pressure, confined to the sofa for much of the time, and it is Anna’s friend, Ingrid, who hesitatingly guides Rebanks as they clear and repair the nests built for the eider ducks.

As the days go by, Anna’s strength recovers and Rebanks learns more of her family’s connection to eider ducks and the ancient practice of caring for these vulnerable birds. At first restless under the slower pace of life — a sharp contrast to his usual frenetic schedule — Rebanks gradually learns to relax into the ways of the island.

Much of the work involves watching and waiting, being attentive to any change in the atmosphere that might indicate an incoming storm or a hungry predator in the skies above. I was struck by how often Rebanks describes Anna as sitting, looking out the window. She delights in paying attention to the natural world around her, and her close attention is part of what distinguishes her as an expert ‘duck woman.’

As the ducks finally appear in the sea, a period known as varntid begins. Varntid describes the necessary quiet needed for when the ducks decide to leave the waters and nest on the island. The islanders are mindful of keeping noise to a minimum; boats in the area must lower their sails so their flapping doesn’t disturb the ducks and motor boats steer clear during the nesting season.

The ducks gradually descend on Fjærøy; their initial uncertainty mirroring the early days of Rebanks’ arrival with Anna and Ingrid, as they learnt to trust and accept each other. The ducks, in turn, must learn to trust them. Once the endlessly long, light days of summer have arrived, the trio have formed a tight friendship, and Rebanks describes the simple pleasures shared, from tucking in to homemade lefse (thin pancakes) with jam for breakfast, to witnessing a pod of playful whales.

As idyllic as this may sound, Rebanks is careful not to romanticize island life. Both women have known many friends and relations who lost their lives to the sea, and the disturbing effects of pollution and climate change are ever present. Rubbish is routinely swept to shore by the waves, and the number of eider ducks have declined rapidly in recent years.

During their talks on the island, Anna tells Rebanks stories of the huldra - beautiful women from Norwegian folklore. Anna says she once saw a huldra gazing out from the hillside on Fjærøy; a kind of watchful, but beneficent presence. On his initial encounter with Anna, Rebanks saw her almost as a mythological creature: a fierce, heroic woman, a guardian of the island who ‘made the little hairs between my shoulder blades stand up.’

By the end of the book, Rebanks realises Anna’s heroism ‘was a small kind of heroism, but it was the most powerful kind.’ Her determination to care for a small piece of land is epic in quality, and what she taught Rebanks was a universal lesson in humility. Rebanks is aware that he had initially been driven to the island and to Anna by anger. He had wanted an escape from the world, to be cut off from people. Surprisingly, though, for a book about such an isolated setting, the biggest lesson Rebanks learnt from Anna was the power of connection with others:

I had been drawn to Anna because she seemed heroically tough — and she was tough, but her real superpower was forgiveness. She knew that a life full of other people meant accepting their weaknesses and still being there for them… Anna showed me how much we all need each other, and how empty it is to be alone.

There is a certain irony in traveling to one of the world’s remotest islands to learn the old cliche that ‘no man is an island,’ but by sharing Anna’s story — the story of ‘an ordinary woman who had lived an extraordinary life’ — Rebanks is allowing her example to inspire so many others. By doing what we can, one small step at a time, by caring for each other, our community and our landscape, we may offer hope and a helping hand to the generations that come after us.

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