Tourists can take part in Iceland’s sheep-sorting tradition (if they ask nicely)
Come September, the hours of daylight and darkness in Iceland are briefly equal as summer recedes and the shadow of winter advances across the island. The wind gets a steely edge, stirring up white caps in the surrounding seas and lathering clouds and fog over mossy hillocks and volcanic rock formations like swirls of marshmallow fluff. Sensing the change of season, some 380,000 sheep (about one for every Icelander) begin to descend from the highlands after a summer of free-range gorging on grass, forbs (herbaceous flowering plants) and berries.
The sheep flow like a woolly waterfall, driven by volunteer shepherds, some on foot, others riding diminutive and adorably shaggy Icelandic horses. Iceland’s sheep farmers release their flocks into the wild every May, just after lambing season, and rely on the community to come together to retrieve and sort them before winter arrives. “It’s not just about the sheep, it’s also very important socially for everyone involved," says Pálína Axelsdóttir Njarðvík, whose family has been sheep-farming for seven generations and whose @farmlifeiceland has a devoted following on Instagram.
Réttir, or the annual sheep sorting, brings together friends, family, neighbors and some intrepid tourists in a cooperative tradition that dates back to Viking times. According to Icelandic Lamb, an association representing local sheep farmers, Vikings brought sheep to the island in the ninth century and the breed has changed little since. Back then, finding your flock at the end of summer meant you could survive the winter.
Every part of the sheep was used: wool, meat, bones. Even the dung was burned for heating. While réttir remain mostly insular, local events, a handful of tour companies offer réttir
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