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World Heritage list in 2004. Many thought
that the site was added to the list simply
because it is so beautiful there. It certainly is
beautiful, but it's not quite that simple,” says
Bente Sundsvold, a visual anthropologist at
the university.
The Vega islands, about 6,000 islands in all,
are found on the exclusive list because it is
home to a place where there is a very special
relationship between human and birds. For
centuries – perhaps millennia, people on
the islands have beenmaking a living from
eggs and down.
Eider ducks, or “ea” as they are locally
known, produce the finest natural down
available – eiderdown, and it is very exclu-
sive. People have gone to great lengths to
enable the ducks to continue to incubate
their eggs on Vega. Among other things,
they have made nests for themwith dried
seaweed and built special “houses” for them,
to protect the birds frompredators. By
“waiting on” the birds in this way, inhabit-
ants ensure that they get the finest possible
quality down, and the birds feel safe enough
to return - year after year.
“During the springtime, which is the most
critical time in the breeding process when
the eider ducks look for nesting sites,
everything that happens is for the benefit
of the birds. Residents avoid having a fire
in the fireplace, for example, and in the old
days children were bribed with nice toys so
that there would be peace and quiet on the
islands. The locals refer to the ducks as the
islanders’ ‘livestock’. The birds are certainly
not tame and they do as they want, but
it’s a win-win situation for both parties,”
Sundsvold says.
Sundsvold thinks that the egg and down
tending would have been forgotten if it were
not for the status of theWorld Heritage List.
“For many years afterWorldWar II people
were paid “emigration payment” from the
state to move from rural areas, and Vega
was no exception. This meant that there
were fewer and fewer who relied on tending
the eider and their down. But if the site is
to remain on theWorld Heritage List, the
tradition of tending the birds and eggs must
be kept alive,” Sundsvold says.
Etchedanddrawn in5000years
“Evidence of our ancestors is important to
preserve. After all, their successes are what
enable us to be here today,” says archaeol-
ogy professor Knut Helskog.
Helskog was one of the first academics who
started to identify and interpret Northern
Europe's largest collection of rock carvings,
made by hunters and trappers. Since 1973
more than 5,500 rock carvings and rock
paintings have been documented in several
places around Alta, the oldest from about
5200 BC.
The carvings were made close to the sea, on
rocks along the beach.
“As the glaciers retracted after the last ice
age, the land rose and stones that had once
been below sea level were carved as well”,
Helskog says. “There is a span of 5,000 years
between the oldest drawings on top and the
youngest at the bottom. This means that
they can be divided into time periods, and
we can see that the shapes change signifi-
cantly over time,” he says.
Helskog wrote the scientific rationale for
including Alta and its rock carvings on the
World Heritage List, and in 1985 the region
was added to the list.
“What makes this place unique is that the
content is so rich and diverse, for instance
with compositions showing bear hunting
and reindeer trapping. Carvings were used
to communicate with other people, but also
with the subterranean world, with animal
souls and gods. The carvings probably
stopped because they found other ways to
communicate,” he said.
Helskog says the drawings show that
hunters, trappers and fisher folk hadmore
knowledge and strength than we previ-
ously believed, and fared far better than we
previously thought. “The more I study this,
the greater my admiration for these people.
This legacy is something we should all be
proud of,” he says.
FACTS: World Heritage list
UNESCO (the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization)
adopted the Convention on the World
Cultural and Natural Heritage (the World
Heritage List) on 16 November 2012. 189
states have ratified the World Heritage
List.
The list contains 962 sites, representing
cultural sites (745), natural areas (188) and
a mix of the two (29).
Norway has seven locations on the
list: Bryggen in Bergen, Urnes Stave
Church, Røros, the Alta rockcarvings,
the Vega islands, Struve Geodetic Arc in
Hammerfest and the west Norwegian
fjords (Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord).
The basic criterion for getting a location
on the list is that its heritage is fixed,
meaning that it can not be moved.
To get on the list, a site must meet at
least one of the ten selected criteria. You
can read more about Norway’s World
Heritage sites at
Eider ducks are well taken care of by the people in
Vega. They build nests and small house for them as
protection against predators. In return, people get
both eggs and the finest natural down available –
eider down. Photo: Bente Sundsvold.
University of Tromsø –
Labyrint E/13
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Text: Randi M. Solhaug
