IT’S sunny. Again. Over recent weeks, Scotland has been transformed into a blossoming, northern outpost of the Mediterranean, where the skies are predictably blue day after day, rain is (almost) a distant memory and the countryside is lush, green and sprinkled with an abundance of wildflowers.

Of course we know it won’t last, and popping one toe in the North Sea is a quick reminder of our real, permanent location. But a few weeks away from Scotland’s normal “summer” weather has given us all a boost – we remember now that despite the seemingly endless, harsh winter of 2018, this beautiful, fertile, sun-kissed country is also Scotland.

Imagine if we could do the same thing politically – look for a while beyond our current position as a frustrated, patronised, reluctant part of the United Kingdom, to the progressive, green, energy-rich country Scotland is set to become.

If we could catch just a glimpse of that better future, of a country firing on all cylinders without Britain’s cruel welfare “reforms” and inefficient, unfair privatised utilities – if we could visualise a society reshaped to suit our northern needs and social democratic outlook, we might all feel calmer and more confident now. There might be less fierce, angst-ridden difference over currency, less uncertainty about “oil volatility”, less doubt about our own capacity to run Scotland differently.

If we could really believe a better destination is attainable, if we could see it, believers would find the stamina to keep going and doubters might find the motivation to dare to believe in better.

One vision of an independent future was delivered last week by economist Andrew Wilson and his Sustainable Growth Commission report. There have been comments and analysis galore and I’m not planning to add to it here, because there are other visions of Scotland’s future living and breathing right beside us, right now.

Our wee north European neighbours offer glimpses of the country Scotland could become – not because we will ever be a carbon copy of anywhere else, but because each country has been able to find its own way, make the most of its natural advantages and create bespoke systems that suit its own demography and geography and no-one else’s.

Each of these little countries has been able to co-operate with like-minded neighbours, overcome remoteness, establish new trade and transport routes and act quickly in the face of the downturns and disasters that inevitably confront a country from time to time – both natural and manmade. For a while, Iceland was held up as a model for Scotland – then came the financial crash and the country was mocked by naysayers as part of the Arc of Insolvency, along with Ireland.

Today both those countries have higher growth rates than the UK, which is pretty impressive if growth rates float your boat. Ireland has also had the cultural confidence to deal with its legacy of religious control over issues like divorce, equal marriage and abortion.

Iceland is officially the best place in the world to be a woman, with the highest literacy rates and a far higher position in the world happiness league tables than any part of the UK. But let’s not pretend all in their gardens is now permanently rosy.

The measure of Iceland is not the absence of difficulties – after all, one-third of all the lava flows on planet Earth have run here, and Iceland’s eight active volcanoes are all overdue an eruption.

The country’s economic problems aren’t permanently solved either. Iceland jailed its bankers, and its political and business leaders boldly opted to boost tourism straight after the financial crash because they realised the weakness of the Icelandic kroner finally made the island affordable for non-Nordic visitors. Even the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in 2010 had an upside for these confident islanders – the ash cloud told other Europeans, Iceland was closer as a holiday destination than anyone knew.

So it’s not the absence of problems, it’s the way these small, lithe, confident countries deal with their problems of remoteness, physical extremes and human greed that marks them out as success stories. That’s why I’ve been visiting and writing about the Nordic nations for almost a decade, and getting more and more frustrated by the absence of any serious attempt to portray this capable northern world by publicly funded broadcasters – with the sole exception (that I know about) of the excellent single documentary Our Friends in the North presented by Alan Little and broadcast on BBC Scotland in 2014.

So all of this is why, on another warm, sunny day two months ago, Al from Phantom Power films and myself met to talk through a whacky idea – that we could make a series of films about our inspiring wee neighbours without a commission, without the support of a broadcaster, without any money and without a ready-made audience in Scotland or anywhere else. C’mon, you can see the appeal.

We reckoned it was do-able if we cut costs to the bare minimum, and got on with producing one film as a pilot instead of spending months, even years, trying (and probably failing) to get a commission from the BBC or another broadcaster. It was do-able if we could rely on the networks created by the Yes movement to do some publicity and distribution for us, and if the first film made enough impact it might encourage SNP, Green Party, Common Weal, Women for Indy, local Yes group branches and anyone with a few bob to contribute to our crowdfunding appeal to make more films.

This “go for it” approach has worked so far. A mystery group of donors came forward to cover our travel and production costs to the Faroe Islands which let us make film number one (they will hopefully reveal themselves with a public launch in the next few weeks). And it’s really captured the advanced nature of “normal” that’s an everyday reality for our (virtually) self-governing neighbours.

I’d already been to the Faroes in 2016, but the people and stories Al and I recorded on this cluster of 18 barren little islands, 200 miles north of Scotland in early May were quietly gob-smacking.

With one hundredth of Scotland’s population, no oil, no gas, no whisky and only a handful of traffic lights, the Faroes are quietly knocking spots off other larger economies around the world. In a nutshell, the Faroes have the world’s fastest mobile broadband (faster than Singapore and South Korea), the world’s best salmon (and that’s according to Americans, Icelanders and Scots), the world’s most powerfully devolved parliament (with control over energy, broadband, media and trade, which explains why the Faroes can be outside the EU while Denmark is inside) and a rising population as youngsters opt to stay while many Scottish islands are facing depopulation.

Their language and their capital (and only town) were ignored by Google – they turned that around with two hilarious, clever and characteristically confident campaigns, Sheep View and Faroese Translate.

What gives these islanders that kind of confidence?

Put simply, it’s the power to direct their own fate and turn their island nation around quickly to adapt to new circumstances.

We need to fill our heads and our airwaves with stories like these. Facts, figures and strategies matter to a society contemplating change – but so does motivation and inspiration. Many Scots – even former No voters – are pretty sure they want to leave the UK, but they don’t yet know where they are going to arrive. It’s our responsibility to colour in that destination with real, living examples of small countries whose can-do attitude lets us glimpse our own, unique potential.

Can a series of online films about the Faroes, Iceland, Norway, Finland and beyond do that? Obviously not. But as all these small, powerful countries amply demonstrate, fortune favours the bold.

View the Faroes film, share the link and support the crowdfunder for the Nation series if you can; https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/nation