How Faroe Islanders mapped their homeland with camera-toting sheep
There are almost twice as many sheep as people on the Faroe Islands. So a few of the 50,000 humans have decided to recruit the animals to help them map the country.
The sheep are outfitted with harnesses mounted with 360-degree cameras and then left to roam. The purpose — to entice Google Street View to come to the remote islands and map the places too dangerous for the sheep: the roads.
Google has so far refused to go to the Faroe Islands, located about half way between Iceland and Norway in the North Atlantic.
"Until they [Google] come, we will do Sheep View on our own," Durita Dahl Andreassen tells As It Happens guest host Susan Bonner. "We're surprised how well it worked and we've got some very beautiful pictures."
Andreassen and her team work with one sheep at a time. They find an attractive setting, then ask a local shepherd to lend them an animal well-suited to the job.
"He chooses a calm sheep, a human-friendly sheep that is easy to work with and maybe a sheep that likes to eat. They all do, but the shepherds tell me that sheep will do anything to eat," says Andreassen.
So far, they've mapped five areas.
"I think that's a beautiful thought, that, wherever you are in the world, whoever you are, you have access to see the world, even a hidden place like the Faroe Islands," Andreassen says.
Andreassen, who works for the Faroe Island tourist board, also hopes the project will entice visitors to the country.
"I think the world through the eyes of a sheep is an exciting world, a beautiful world," she says. "Because of the drama they make out of nothing. Maybe rubbing against a fence. Their peaceful life."