MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

On first Monday in October Falklands celebrates Peat Cutting Day

Peat for decades was used in Falklands to heat homes and cooking food

Monday 5th October has been a public holiday in the Falkland Islands. This is because the first Monday in October every year has been declared Peat Cutting Day, which is a way of celebrating a long standing tradition and recalling the primary fuel that for decades kept Islanders and their homes warm.

October was the time of the year when Islanders wnet out to cut cubes of surface-soil peat, predominant in the Islands, and was used as fuel for heating homes and cooking food in the Islands.

In 2002, the Executive Council of the Falkland Islands made it an official public holiday to be celebrated on the first Monday in October every year. Little peat cutting takes place in modern times, since the Islands have other sources of energy, fossil fuels, electricity (mostly eolic) and other green alternatives.

For decades the smell of peat heating was a distinctive pattern of Stanley and Camp settlements.