There may be many paths along the remote, windswept Faroe Islands that Google’s street view vehicles can’t traverse, but that’s where the archipelago’s many four-legged residents come in. Last year, the Danish territory petitioned Google to bring its Street View feature to its shores. They felt a little left out, considering that Street View has even captured places like the Galapagos Islands and the Great Barrier Reef. Some residents of the 18-island chain decided to take matters into their own hands, proving not only that their homeland was worth documenting, but that they had simple solutions to some of the technicalities.

Resident Durita Dahl Andreassen of Visit Faroe Islands gave an impassioned plea, saying “To me it is the strangest thing that I cannot show my friends in other countries where I am from. My home country is beautiful, green and kind of undiscovered to the rest of the world – and I want to share it with the world. If Google Street View will not come to the Faroe Islands, I will make The Faroe Islands visible to the world in another way.”

Andreassen spearheaded a campaign called Sheep View 360, outfitting five of her own sheep with solar-powered cameras attached to special harnesses and letting them roam all over the hillsides as they normally would. Unsurprisingly, the sheep captured some spectacular footage, wandering up onto the island’s many grassy rooftops as well. The photos were sent directly to Andreassen’s smartphone.

The campaign worked. Google supplied islanders with camera equipment to capture the Faroe Islands on foot, in cars, from kayaks, ships, bikes and wheelbarrows. Check it out here (in some shots, you can even pan down to see the sheep!)

“Where there’s a wool, there’s a way,” commented David Castro Gonzalez de Vega, Google Maps program manager.

Powered by solar energy and mounted to the backs of sheep, 360-degree cameras are mapping out the Faroe Islands for Google Street View. Since Google was initially reluctant to send cars to the archipelago, locals took it upon themselves to get their own interactive images out into the world, raising awareness of the region’s uniquely beautiful landscapes. In the end, they not only attracted Google’s interest but managed to spawn a creative DIY approach to mapping rugged environments.

Sheep View 360 got its start when resident Durita Dahl Andreassen first strapped a camera to a sheep, let the animal roam free around the island then uploading the results to Google. “I gently placed a 360-degree camera powered by a solar panel on the back of a sheep that would take photographs as the animal freely grazed the open hillsides,” explains Andreassen.

“Photos are then transmitted back to my mobile phone so that I can upload them to Google Street View myself, finally putting the Faroes on the map in a very unique way!” Indeed, some of the shots and perspectives would be unlikely or impossible for vehicles or even humans, taken as they are from the tops of roofs and sides of mountains.

This endeavor and an associated petition eventually did get Google’s attention, but by the time they showed up with vehicles the self-mapping system was well underway with sheep, bikers, backpackers, ships and even a wheelbarrow playing parts.

Ultimately, folks from the Faroe Islands have made it a bit of an interactive game — anyone who wants to can come borrow a camera and start mapping the parts not yet uploaded to Google. This presents an interesting challenge for those who want to take it on: can you as a tourist cameraman visit the places most people and cars don’t go to or can’t reach?

“The Faroe Islands have some of the most beautiful roads in the world. It is impossible to describe what it feels like driving through the green valleys and up the mountains, or alongside the ocean, surrounded by steep drops and tall cliffs. It’s an experience like no other.”