Keeping Warm

Two minutes in the local store tells me more about a place than any travel brochure ever can.

In Stanley—the tiny, two-story, tin roof capital of the Falkland Islands—I walk into “the shop” and notice fly swatters, folded camouflage coats, and a row of tea, cookies and candy all flown in from England, some 8,000 miles away. A wall of men’s plain black sweaters makes up one half of the March “Back to School” sale: 100% Acrylic, Made in China. I wonder about the more fashion-conscious element of Stanley’s 2,000 inhabitants and how they cope with the indignity of wearing the same polyester sweater as everyone else.

I am in search of a hat—a nice, woolly cap–preferably hand knit and preferably from the Falklands. I need something warm on my head as I set sail for chilly polar waters, yet all I can find are chintzy imports for tourists: flimsy felt penguin hats complete with eyes and orange beaks, also Made in China. A local woman does knit hats, I am told—then led—to a rack of women’s pastel beanies that seem inspired by Dr. Seuss. Close by, jars of dark red diddledee jam seem to match the Dr. Seuss theme, except these are actually authentic—tart red diddledee berries grow all across the Falklands heath land. I picked and ate some just the day before while hiking in the hills.

I visit four shops in Stanley and not one carries a man’s hat knitted from Falklands wool. No matter the thousands of sheep that give purpose to these barren green-brown landscapes, no matter the sheep on the flag, no matter the rich local tradition of making yarn and knitting—Today, I must confront the concept of economies of scale.

The Falklands are quite small—every local is an insider with a mother, grandmother or aunt to knit them a nice, warm woolen hat. Outsiders like me are left to the scant number of stores where penguin products take priority.

Frustrated in my quest for a hat, I head uphill for a better view of this forgotten town at the edge of an island at the edge of the world. At the top of Endurance Avenue, I inhale the unforgettable curl of coal smoke—a strange dark smell that hints at the coming winter ahead. I peer into one backyard, where an older man is stacking rough black cubes into a wooden pen. The pile is taller than me and I walk over for a closer look.

It’s a massive pile of peat—peat like they burn for fuel in Scotland and Ireland. I realize that it wasn’t coal I was smelling before, but peat. Every cube is cut to the same size and the sea air is drying it into dense bricks, ready to be thrown onto a living room fire.

The old man is Richard Browning, age 69. He wears a plaid cap and speaks to me with a round English accent that goes back to 1850, when his family first arrived in the Falklands. In fact, I soon find out that he is first cousins with a woman I know on nearby Carcass Island. It’s a small world after all, but in the Falklands, it’s simply miniscule.

Richard shows me how he cuts the peat with a straight spade—he’s cut 100 cubic yards to get him through the upcoming winter. The black bricks of earth are heavy and smell like damp charcoal, but with bits of dried roots and twigs stuck inside. In Stanley, less than 20 homes still burn peat for energy—the rest of the town is on the grid—but for Richard, the peat is free. It’s an arduous job cutting it himself that took him most of the summer to complete.

We keep chatting at his back gate and I try to hide my disbelief when I find out the man I’m talking to has never traveled before. Not only has he never left the Falkland Islands—he’s never left East Falkland to visit the other main island—West Falkland.

“Never crossed the sound; never needed to,” he laughs. It’s staggering for me to comprehend an entire life spent in this one place. I have just met a man who is my complete opposite—someone who doesn’t feel the need to travel.

“Didn’t you ever want to leave?” I wonder aloud, “Go explore somewhere else? See new places?”

“Yes, one time,” he confesses. “I ran away on a ship with a girlfriend to Uruguay—but the captain discovered me halfway and brought me back.” His eyes tell a longer, deeper version of the story—the trip that got away. The life that didn’t happen.

We talk about the war, too—in the Falklands, all things point to the war that was: 1982, the brief occupation, the British triumph, and the lingering minefields that surefooted cattle still trigger now and again. But now, almost 30 years later, it’s the weather than Richard remembers best.

“It was good weather back then—sunny even. Once the Argentines left, it got stormy again.” In the Falklands, the weather changes constantly in a day—from sun and breeze to heavy rain cloud and whistling windstorm.

We discuss weather—the coming cold, the drifting snow, the darkness and wet of a Falklands winter. We talk sheep, too—Richard is a retired farmer who used to keep some 2,000 sheep—but that was B.C. (before the conflict). Like so many, the sheep became too much trouble for not enough pay. Today, the Falklands earns much more money from selling fishing rights and by running the only certified sustainable fishery of the Patagonian Toothfish (which appears on your menu as “Chilean Sea Bass”). In the years following the conflict, some sheepless farmers moved “to the city” of tiny Stanley to do something else. Today, Richard lives off his pension and keeps warm by cutting up the plentiful peat.

I ask him about that hat. Where can a man buy a hat on Saturday in Stanley? Richard knows. Hospitable and kind, he offers to show me and we hop in his Land Rover. He drives me less than three blocks away to a tiny shoebox of a store where, for four dollars and thirty-eight cents, I buy a man’s winter hat, 100% acrylic, Made in China.