Both memoir and bibliotherapy for troubled minds, The Place of Tides by James Rebanks takes a step out of time and place, transporting us to a remote Norwegian island just south of the Arctic Circle. Here, burnt out and disillusioned with life, Rebanks spends a restorative ‘eiderdown season’ with a marvellous woman named Anna. Upholding an ancient island tradition, Anna nurtures wild eider ducks as they nest and lay eggs, collecting the precious down they leave behind to make duvets. The days are still, the work simple and repetitive, a balm for Rebanks’ spirits as he uncovers the story of Anna’s long island life and learns some valuable lessons.
We loved Rebanks’ debut, The Shepherd’s Life, published in 2015, a captivating and very personal account of sheep farming in the Lake District. A decade and several books later finds him burdened with an increasingly bleak world view and emotionally disconnected. Throughout these years he has often thought of an old woman he once met on a working trip to Norway, Anna, the ‘duck woman’.
At that time, Anna had welcomed Rebanks, given him a tour of the island and her work. She had been charismatic, absorbed by her endeavours, a little wild somehow, and free. Now, in the midst of his angst, Rebanks recalls her.
‘There was something still alive in her that had died in me. I had seen it in her eyes. I needed to go back and work out what it was…’
She remembers him, he’s the only Englishman ever to visit her. He may join her in what is to be her last season before retiring and he’s to bring sturdy boots.
Slow-paced and mesmerising, The Place of Tides is blessed with some striking descriptive passages. As Rebanks, along with Anna and friend, Ingrid, begin to clear away old seaweed nests in preparation for the three hundred new ones they’ll be making, his observations are lovely; foreshores massed with the ‘curved shards’ of pink and white sea urchin shells, beneath a vast sky, where ‘skeins of gulls’ are gusting along, beating hard ‘in Indian file from north to south’. This is the kind of place that reinforces feelings of being the tiniest speck in the cosmos.
And much later, once the ducks have arrived, laid eggs, and left:
‘All that was left of the nest…the eiderdown…just lying there, like an afterthought, the nest-rent paid. The down tingled in our fingers, fluffy, clean and dry, almost weightless.’
Everyday Rebanks learns something new, both practically and intellectually. Anna shares the story of her life, and in doing so, also the recent history and culture of her homeland. The ‘duck station’ islands of the Vega archipelago are now a UNESCO World Heritage site and Anna is proud of her pivotal role in that process.
She has much to say about preserving tradition, combating sexist attitudes to her work, and the degradation of the seas. Rebanks admires this headstrong, unique woman but he has fundamentally misunderstood her. Anna’s story contains lessons for him personally and things have to change.
Check out whc.unesco.org for accompanying history and footage to enjoy alongside this compelling memoir.
See also, our review of The Shepherd’s Life.
The Place of Tides by James Rebanks is published by Penguin, 304 pages.
