Sunday, February 08, 2009

Farewell to St Kilda


Cuma now made her way down the east coast of Boreray. As we entered the shade of her high cliffs, a chill descended on our mood. We knew we were shortly to return to Harris and leave the enchanted archipelago of St Kilda in the middle of the dreaming ocean.


In reality, the St Kildans lived brutally tough lives there was little romance about their survival or their eventual evacuation. The whole island history has been viewed through the rose tinted spectacles of Victorian tourists. Because the islanders were the remotest community in the British Isles and their economy was based on shared labour without money,they were seen as a utopian curiosity. As a result, their decline and fall was well documented but any seakayaker who has spent time exploring the Scottish coastline will have found dozens of other abandoned settlements. Their residents have no history, no names, no photographs and no rows of books on library shelves dedicated to their lives and times. The only testaments to their existence are a few piles of moss covered stones.

Both my wife and I, who are urban Scots, have ancestors who lived in the isles. My mother's family abandoned their croft on a Scottish island and came to Glasgow in the 1860's, before the stone cottages on St Kilda were built and 70 years before it was evacuated! The reason the St Kildan's survived so long, was the birds. The harvest of the sea fowl made the St Kildan's lives easier than those of many of their peers on the Hebrides and remote mainland coasts.


Cuma now turned her bow towards Harris and slowly...


... the jagged cliffs and peaks of the St Kildan archipelago...


... slipped away below the western horizon.

We could, of course, choose to return any summer and I am sure we will. For most of the St Kildans, who were evacuated on that day in 1930, it was to be different. Theirs' was a final farewell, as the peaks of their island home were swallowed by the empty flatness of the Atlantic Ocean.


Soon the only evidence, of this land at the edge of the World, were the gannets. They all flew in the same direction, back towards distant rocky ledges and their hungry chicks.

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Winter


No seakayaking today!

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Stac an Armin


Cuma made her way north up the west coast of Boreray and we came to the giant Stac an Armin, at 196m, the tallest of all the British sea stacks.


Stac an Armin is the norther outlier of the St Kildan archipelago looked SW to distant Levenish, Stac Lee and Hirta.


The St Kildans built about 80 cleitean on Stac an Armin.


After rounding the north end of Stac an Armin Cuma made her way SE down the east coast.


The Cuma kept well clear of the rocky channel between Boreray and Stac an Armin. We got a good view of Stac Lee, Hirta and Soay through the gap.


Leaving Stac an Armin in our wake, we looked in awe at the great horns of rock on north cliffs of Boreray. Our visit to the archipelago was soon coming to an end.

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Thursday, February 05, 2009

The west coast of Boreray.


The MV Cuma made her way between Stac Lee and the rugged west coast of Boreray in the St Kilda Archipelago. The island is 384m high, 1.6km north to south and 1.1km at its widest, east to west.


Latterly the islanders kept sheep on Boreray but, in earlier times, they also cultivated the land. Their old lazy bedsare still visible when the low sun strikes across a grassy slope.


Boreray's wild west coast is today inhabited only by the birds.


Gannets peel off every ledge...


... and scan the sea below for fish. They plunge from on high in pursuit of their prey.

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Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Stac Lee


Approaching Stac Lee, every ledge appears to have a thick layer of snow and the sky above seems to be full of swirling snow flakes.


As you get closer, you are confronted by one of the natural wonders of the World. The island is completely covered in noisy gannets. A fifth of the World's northern gannets breed on these isolated blades of rock.


Gannets are large birds with forward facing eyes. They dive from about 50m above the water and can plunge deep under the surface with folded wings in search of fish.


From the side, Stac Lee can be seen to be a thin blade of rock, 172m high. It is remarkable that a party of St Kildans survived here for 9 months (through a winter). They were marooned because a small pox outbreak on Hirta prevented their fellow islanders from picking them up after a bird hunting expedition. Soay is on the horizon.


Looking from the far side of Stac Lee, back towards Dun and Hirta.

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Tuesday, February 03, 2009

To Boreray and the Stacs


About 7km to the NE of Hirta lies one of the most dramatic island groups in Scotland: Boreray and the Stacs. MV Cuma now made her way between Boreray and Stac Lee, round Stac an Armin and then round the far side of Boreray before returning to Harris.


These scraps of land way out in the Atlantic form part of the rim of a volcano which was formed as the plates on either side of the Atlantic Ocean began to separate. Here we see Stac Lee, Stac an Armin and Boreray. The St Kildans visited each of these islands, usually in August, to harvest sea birds. They also kept sheep on Boreray. There are no beaches to land and leave a boat. They were dropped off by a boat heaving up and down in the Atlantic swell and had to climb up the steep rocks above.


Stac Lee and Stac an Armin are the two biggest sea stacks in the British Isles.

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Monday, February 02, 2009

The sea cliffs of Hirta


On board the MV Cuma again, we were soon rounding the eastern ramparts of Oisebhal on Hirta. We were bound for Boreray and the stacs and thence to Harris.


The NE coast of Hirta has the highest sea cliffs in the British Isles. Behind the low lying Sgeirnan Sgarbh in the fore ground, rise the cliffs of Conachair 430m.


Looking back, the notched ridge of Dun shelters the Village Bay.


This is the Gap between Oisebhal and Conachair, down which the St Kildans lowered themselves in the hunt for fulmars.


As the Cuma pulled away from Hirta, Soay came into sight behind Mina Stac. Like the St Kildans 78 years previously we were now leaving Hirta. Our acquaintance had been short but nonetheless we knew we were now leaving a very special place in our wake.

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Sunday, February 01, 2009

No 3, The Street and the silent poem of the people of St Kilda


It was early June 2008. Leaving the burial ground, I walked slowly back down the village street of empty windows and doors. On the way, I heard a high pitched birdsong and there, jumping in and out of gaps in a blackhouse wall, was a St Kildan wren. This subspecies is a survivor of the pre-Ice Age population of Scottish wrens. The ice sheet, which enveloped Scotland, did not reach as far as St Kilda.

Cheered by the song of this hardy survivor, I continued on my way down the street towards the jetty and our waiting boat. I had nearly passed No. 3 before I realized that it was the museum, devoted the island's last human inhabitants. Looking back at the 19th century buildings, only the distant antennae for the missile tracking system gave hint that this was now the 21st century.


This photo was taken from the same spot in 1886, some 122 years before. It shows members of the Gillies family outside No. 3, The Street.


Inside, the renovated house's two rooms have been converted into a single room museum of island life.


A slate on the wall commemorates former residents of the house. I have already mentioned Malcolm MacDonald, who lived in this house until he left the island in 1924.


Malcolm's father was also called Malcolm MacDonald and this tourist photograph, with the family cow, now hangs in the house he once called home.

After the MacDonalds left, and by 1930, there were only 36 inhabitants left. Their numbers were depleted by emigration, their self sufficiency weakened by age and a succession of poor summers. Finally, they petitioned the British government, asking for evacuation. They left on 27th August and brought thousands of years of occupation and history to an end. Sadly there is no written history and little oral history left by the islanders themselves. Life was too harsh and survival took all their efforts. What we know of them is largely through the cameras and pens of wealthy tourists, who viewed them as curiosities. Despite this lack of island literature, the modern visitor can hardly fail to be moved by a silent poem of the people of St Kilda. You might hear it as you wander through the empty ruins of thousands of years of human survival, on the edge of the world.

By now the increasing wind was sending gusts scudding across the Bay. The MV Cuma was the only boat remaining and we knew Murdani, her skipper, would be anxious to set sail for the shelter of Loch Resort on the distant west coast of Harris. We only had a morning to explore St Kilda. We saw much and learned a great deal about the island and the people who lived there. However, we left feeling we had only scratched the surface of this remarkable island's secrets and past.

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Footnote. The following books have provided the information referred to in these recent pages:

Sir Donald Monro, "A description of the Western Isles of Scotland called Hybrides" 1549,(manuscript published 1774).
Martin Martin, "A late voyage to St. Kilda, the remotest of all the Hebrides, or Western Isles of Scotland", 1698.
Martin Martin, "A description of the Western Islands of Scotland circa 1695", 1703.
Tom Steel, "The life and death of St Kilda", 1975 revised edition 1988.
Alan Small, "A St Kilda Handbook", 1979.
Geoffrey Stell, Mary Garman, " Buildings of St Kilda", 1988.
WR Mitchell, "Finlay MacQueen of St Kilda", 1992.
David Quine, Colin Baxter, "St Kilda", 2002.
Andrew Fleming, "St Kilda and the Wider World", 2005
John Randall et al, "The Decline and Fall of St Kilda: Proceedings of an international conference" 2005.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Life and Death on St Kilda


From the Gap below Oiseval on the NE coast of Hirta I turned my back to the sea and the wheeling fulmars. I made my way back down to the village.


From above I could see that what I had thought was a vegetable enclosure behind the village, is actually the burial ground.


It is the site of the ancient Christ chapel though no trace of it remains.
Photo JLW


Most of the grave stones are rough hewn with no inscription.
Photo JLW


Others are more elaborate and carved from imported stone, a sign that the Victorian St Kildans' contact with tourists had given them access to money.
Photo JLW


Although this was the remotest inhabited part of the British Isles, its very remoteness attracted wealthy Victorian tourists. They have left a photographic record of the islanders from about 1860. This is Rachel Gillies, whose grave stone is in the photo above. This photo is in the island museum.


Some of the gravestones are quite recent. Malcolm MacDonald left the island in 1924 and spent most of his life in London. He always missed the island home of his youth. He visited St Kilda again in 1967 and found it very hard to leave for a second time and return to London.
Photo JLW


His name, and that of his father, is still just legible on the faded pupil roll in the school house.

Malcolm did make one final trip to St Kilda. His ashes were buried next to the remains of his ancestors. It is likely to be one of the last internments on this island, at the edge of the world, which was inhabited for thousands of years but now stands silent, as a museum to the past.

For a moment, as the wind blew round the walls of the burial ground, I thought I could hear distant voices. But it was only the cries of the sea birds and I turned back to the village street.

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Friday, January 30, 2009

130 fulmars per year.


The cliff ledges of Hirta are home to thousands of pairs of fulmars. At one time fulmars were confined to the St Kilda archipelago but since the end of the 19th century they have spread to Scotland and the rest of the British Isles.


This pair are nesting on a bed of sea pink and sea campion but fulmars do not construct a nest for their single egg. They do not begin breeding until they are 8 to 10 years old and can live to over 50.


Superficially fulmars look like gulls but are actually petrels, related to shearwaters and albatrosses. They have a graceful stiff winged flight and glide for long distances skimming the waves with their wingtips. They protect their nests by projectile vomiting a nasty oil.


Fulmars formed a staple of the St Kildans' diet. Each person would eat about 130 fulmars per year. The men scrambled over the crags catching the birds and collecting their eggs. If you follow this link to the Scottish Screen Archive you can see a dizzying clip, shot in 1923, of St Kildans going over the cliffs in search of fulmars at this very spot.

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Thursday, January 29, 2009

Between a pox and a hard place on Stac Lee.


From the cliffs on the NE coast of Hirta it is less than 7km across the Atlantic to Boreray and its two satellite stacs. They are Stac Lee and Stac an Armin (in the shade behind). They are the highest stacks in the British Isles. The islanders kept sheep on Boreray and also visited these islands for the sea bird harvest in August. Amazingly there are also about 50 cleitean on Boreray and about 80 on Stac an Armin!

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There were also bothies on all three. The one on Stac Lee can still be found. It is just below the dark "V" under the left of the white stained summit cap of the island. The island and stacs are too exposed to leave a boat, so work parties were dropped off by a boat from Hirta, which would return when a signal indicated the work was done.

In 1729 a smallpox epidemic was started after a St Kildan had died on Harris from smallpox the previous year. As his clothes were still good, they were brought back to St Kilda and the smallpox gripped the population. At the time, three adults and eight boys were marooned on Stac Lee because there were no surviving adults, strong enough to man the boat from Hirta, to rescue them. They remained on this windswept rock for 9 months, through the winter and into the next summer, until the factor's boat from Harris relieved them. When they returned to Hirta, they found only one adult and 18 children had survived the epidemic from the population of nearly 200.

Remarkably St Kilda was repopulated in the 1730's from Harris, Uist and Skye. Life may have been tough on St Kilda but it was even worse for many on these other islands. The incomers were taught how to climb the cliffs and harvest birds by the few survivors. By 1758 the population had risen to 88 but it would never again reach 200. The decline had started.

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