Fancy being a hermit in rural Norway? Follow James Rebanks

James Rebanks is also the author of English Pastoral and The Shepherd's Life
James Rebanks is also the author of English Pastoral and The Shepherd’s Life - Chris Watt

For the most part, humankind’s relationship with the animal world has been a lopsided one. We’re the number one predator, a position which has only strengthened as our population has grown, and our lethal combination of intelligence, selfishness and greed has ravaged stocks, ruined habitats and carelessly decimated countless species.

That relationship, however, looks a little different in one of the remoter parts of the globe. Across a number of tiny islands in the Arctic Circle off the coast of Norway, the relationship between birds and human beings is mutually beneficial.

Here, every spring and early summer, eider ducks arrive to breed. Their predators are numerous – from sea eagles and ravens to otters and even mink – and so ­generations of Norwegians have learned to protect them, building nesting boxes, placing decoy wooden eggs to fool gulls, and guarding nesting ducks until their eggs have hatched. The quid pro quo is the eider down, which ­mothers pluck from their breast to keep their chicks warm, and leave behind when the brood returns to sea. That down, once harvested, is then used to produce some of the world’s finest quilts, pillows and duvets.

The Norwegians who so carefully nurture and protect these characterful ducks are almost all women. Their tradition is a long one: each spring they head out to live on the islands, only returning to the larger coastal island of Vega after a hermit-like, and very frugal, 70 or so days. Wits, practical skill and a willingness to respect and understand the wonders of nature are essential. One such “duck woman” is Anna Måsoy, who is ­facing her final season on these islands and who is also the beating heart of The Place of Tides, James Rebanks’s lyrical and enchanting new book.

A singular fisherman's cottage on the coast of Vega, near where The Place of Tides is set
A singular fisherman’s cottage on the coast of Vega, near where The Place of Tides is set - Alamy

Rebanks, a sheep farmer from the Lake District, has already ­written two nature memoirs, The Shepherd’s Life (2015) and English Pastoral (2020). In both, Rebanks’s prose was tinged with wistfulness, regret and frustration, threads that also run throughout The Place of Tides. He’s a writer fascinated by human relationships and where these converge with the natural world, and his knowledge of farming has led him to consult on such matters internationally.

It was when he was invited some years ago to Norway that he met Anna, if only briefly. Her vitality and determination, as well as her enigmatic, seasonal role, made an impression: later, Rebanks asked whether he might join her for a season’s work. He was overworked back home, sick at heart and knew that he needed a dramatic change of scene, as well as a new challenge. His family, recognising this was a therapy he needed, let him go.

And so he joins Anna, 70 years old and struggling with high blood pressure, and her friend Ingrid, on a remote island a boat ride away from Vega. It’s a bewildering introduction. Rebanks has little experience of the sea, barely knows his companions, and tells us, ­honestly, that he has almost no understanding of what his role will be – he is there very much to learn. There are also language and cultural barriers, and he finds himself living in a simple timber-framed house with minimal amenities.

The Place of Tides is published by Allen Lane
The Place of Tides is published by Allen Lane - Lorne Campbell/Guzelian

To begin with, Anna tires easily. Dishearteningly, there are no eiders at all. This is a time of preparation, we learn: clearing old nests, mending and preparing for the eiders’ arrival; but bad weather holds them up and they spend their long days doing very little. As Rebanks writes, “each of those Arctic summer days felt like a lifetime of light”.

Slowly but surely, however – and you sense this is the book’s real ­pursuit – Rebanks draws Anna’s story from her. There’s her childhood, mythical tales of giant women – the Huldra – and her deep love of the island of Masøy, from which she mysteriously appears estranged, though she will not say why. Then there’s the island of Vjærøy itself, the islets around it and the ever-changing sky-and seascape of flora and fauna that surround them.

Whether the eider will arrive and in what numbers is a constant ­anxiety, and it’s impossible not to share in Rebanks’s wonder and obvious delight when they do. As with this trio of protectors, the reader is willing them all – humans and ducks – to succeed. The challenges are many, the uncertainties considerable, and yet as Anna’s strength grows with each passing day, it’s Rebanks, too, who discovers himself shedding ill-fitting skins. There’s a magical moment when he rows through shallows rich in sea-life and beauty; another where he sees a pod of orcas. Even the eggs of the eiders, small, green, speckled and hard, are in themselves things of wonder.

Rebanks is an extraordinary writer, and The Place of Tides will linger in the mind for a long time. As he shows us, we live in a remarkable natural world. How much sunnier its outlook would be if only we ­nurtured, respected and cared for it as deeply and passionately as the heroine of this book does.


The Place of Tides is published by Allen Lane at £22. To order your copy for £18.99, call 0808 196 6794 or visit Telegraph Books