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Branding Sheep

SEPTEMBER in Iceland is the month of the réttir, or round-up, when Icelanders head to the hills to bring their sheep home. What a sight it is, as thousands upon thousands of sheep—white, black, brown and in between—come stumbling down into the valley after a bright summer of wandering across impossible volcanoes.

Last week, I was lucky enough to help out with the round-up in the tiny township of Fluðir--a cluster of ancient sheep farms at the edge of Iceland’s ice-capped interior. From the back of a sturdy Icelandic horse, the view of the mountains and the sheep was magical. I was living in a post card, down to my very real red nose and the constant scent of wet, live wool all around me. The farmers’ sons cried ‘yip, yip, yip’ and chased the sheep in tighter and tighter circles and moving them along the banks of a glacier river towards the corral. The round pen was built well over 1,000 years ago, made of lava stone and covered with grassy turf. Once the sheep were driven inside, we set about the tough task of grabbing sheep, checking their ear tags for numbers, and shuffling them into the smaller pens of their respective owners. It’s an exercise that favours the combined skills of a legal assistant and rodeo star, but urbanite me still managed to file away six stubborn lambs.

Meanwhile, the farmers watched from the sidelines, sipping on their whiskey flasks at nine in the morning. Despite the atmosphere of work, the round-up is a huge party, when schools are closed, the family gets together, and every teenager has a pint in hand. It only takes 30 minutes before all the sheep are stowed away and suddenly the corral is packed full of people—more people than there are sheep. There’s drinking and laughing, and a lot of happy children running around. Still, in Fluðir, the celebration felt just a tad wistful. Back in the day, the round-up meant tens of thousands of sheep. This year, the 10 or so farmers who live here have collected under 3,000 animals. There’s no money in sheep, they say. The tradition goes on because it’s fun and because it’s Icelandic, but at the end of the day most of the farmers put the sheep in the back of a truck and just drive home.

Icelandic lamb is some of the most costly on the market, but the farmers’ hope is that an increasing desire for clean, high-quality meat will see an increase in exports to both sides of the Atlantic. ‘Free-range’ lamb sounds posh and healthy, though in Iceland, sheep have little options but to range freely. So far, the main American retailer for Icelandic lamb is the lifestyle and natural foods chain Whole Foods Market. In 2005, they started marketing Icelandic lamb full tilt only to drop all Icelandic products the following year when the Icelandic government began issuing dozens of commercial whaling licenses. Dead whales didn’t bode well with the environmentally-conscious shoppers at Whole Foods stores, nor did it coincide with Iceland’s PR slogan as a “pure, natural, and unspoiled” destination. Troubled by the boycott, the Icelandic Farmers Association lobbied hard to end commercial whale hunting for the sake of the sheep. It worked, the whaling stopped, the boycott ended, and the sheep from this year’s round-up will soon be shoulder roast at an organic market near you. It'll cost an arm and a leg, but while you're chewing, you'll be imagining all those pristine landscapes. I think they're counting on it.