Ancient landscape

The Vega Archipelago was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2004 as the first Norwegian cultural landscape. The archipelago is a shallow-water area just south of the Arctic Circle on the west coast of Norway – an open seascape and coastal landscape made up of a myriad of islands, islets and skerries. This cluster of low, treeless islands centred on the more mountainous island of Vega is a testimony to people who developed a distinctive and frugal way of life in an extremely exposed seascape.

Fishermen and hunters have lived on the island of Vega for more than 10,000 years. As numerous new islands gradually rose from the sea after the last Ice Age in Europe, the characteristic landscape became shaped in the interplay between fishermen-farmers and a bountiful nature in an exposed area.

The unique tending of eider ducks was a central part of their way of life. People built shelters (houses) and nests for the wild eiders, which came to the islands each spring. The birds were protected from all manner of disturbance throughout the breeding season and became gradually semi-domesticated. In return, the people would gather the valuable eider down and make duvets, when the birds left their nests with their chicks.