Heading out this morning, we encountered a funeral procession on a city street. We learned that the family walks behind the hearse as the body is moved from the hospital to the church and that it is a national tradition for passersby to stop their vehicle and get out to honor the dead. It proved to be a moving experience.
Soon thereafter, we learned that August is "fulmar season" in the country. During this time, boaters go out to scoop up chubby fulmar chicks from the sea surface, using nets at the end of long poles. The chicks, having dropped from nearby cliffs, are unable to fly for a week or so and are thus easily collected for their tasty flesh.
Nearing the end of the day, we visited a whaling museum where the history of that industry was reviewed and where the rusting equipment was displayed; the Faroe Islands have not been hunting large whales since the early 1980s. Nevertheless, pilot whales are still hunted and that non-commercial practice was defended as a long-standing tradition in the Faroes. I suppose the appropriateness of traditions lies in the eye of the beholder.
