Bill Cox--North to the Shetland Isles

Every country has its centre and its periphery. For most citizens, the periphery is present only in the imagination, a remote place at the edge of the national map, usually conjuring up ideas of wilderness, wildness and perhaps a certain lack of sophistication.

In the United Kingdom, the Shetland Islands very definitely play the role of periphery for the majority of the country’s inhabitants. In the nightly weather reports they sit apart at the top of the map, a remote outpost, separate from the mainland, only accessible by sea or air. It is in fact so far from the mainland that it isn’t shown to scale on most maps, instead occupying a little box of its own, as if in afterthought.

For me, living in Aberdeen, Shetland has always been paradoxically close and far. A little over 200 miles distant as the crow flies, only reachable by air or sea travel, it has always felt distant. And yet the ferry to the isles is only a 15 minute drive from home; indeed, I drive past it 5 days a week on the way to and from work.

At certain points in our lives the wild promise of the periphery calls to us. And so it was that in September of 2019, my partner Hilary and I decided to finally accept this call and take a trip northwards, into Terra Incognita.

The ferry trip between Aberdeen and Lerwick is a 14 hour journey. We have a smooth crossing but our sleep is inevitably broken by the unfamiliar motion and noises of the vessel. It seems only fitting that we should arrive at the periphery in a slightly more dishevelled state than is the norm!

Lerwick, with its 7000 inhabitants (plus 2 new arrivals) seems eerily quiet as the ferry docks on a September Sunday morning. We stay in the town for a week, travelling out each day to find new experiences and fill our senses with new sights, as is the holiday way.

Ultimately there’s no one story here during our week’s stay, no cohesive narrative to tie all these experiences together into one convenient story arc. Instead I’m left with a series of impressions and memories that paint a picture of this place in my mind. They offer no overarching truth about the Shetland Islands, but rather a series of feelings that speak to my subconscious mind in a manner beyond articulation in mere words; a pre-linguistic communion with the natural world that speaks to the innermost folds of my brain.

But words are all I have to offer and I hope that they can conjure up some aspect of those experiences that they might speak to you too!

We take a boat trip around the nearby islands of Bressay and Noss, the latter now a RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) Reserve. Thousands of Gannets are roosting on the vertical cliffs of Noss, the wall of rock matched by the walls of sound and scent that greet the human visitor. Witness a city of Gannets - Gannet-opolis! This is an assault on the senses, a vision of an alien society whose rules and mores we are ignorant of.
Later, during the same trip, the Captain sends a remotely operated vehicle overboard – his very own Yellow Submarine. The R.O.V. descends 15 metres into the channel, searching out the wreck of an old barge, which now acts as a shelter and a home for colourful marine flora and fauna – a glimpse into yet another alien world. The barge was a victim of an air-raid in World War Two – “just young men doing their jobs”, that’s how the captain describes the German bomber crew, sensitive to the multinational nature of the tourists he ferries around. Old enemies have become customers and clients, best to let the wounds of history fade into the past.
The ferry to the small, uninhabited island of Mousa (another RSPB Reserve) is captained by the jovial Rodney. A mixture of nationalities and ages, a veritable mini UN, join us onboard for the short trip on a misty morning. By the time we land the sun has burned away the mist to reveal a pleasant late-summer day. We all take a walk to Mousa Broch, the 2000 year old stone tower perched on a rocky outcrop at the far end of the island. The broch stands like a stone sentinel, home now for Storm Petrels, nocturnal birds, who, along with Shag, Great Skua (the bandits of the avian world) and the occasional Wheatear or Stonechat, are the rulers of this island now.
On the return trip back from Mousa the sight of a pod of Harbour Porpoises causes a moment of excitement on the boat. Their fins and the humps of their backs disappear under the waves in the time it takes my camera to focus and shoot, leaving me with multiple photos of rippled water as a souvenir of the occasion. Yet again, we get a glimpse of another world, another society.
We learn a new word – ‘tombolo’ – a thin strip of sand that links two separate landmasses. There are several in the Shetlands, where landmasses are connected by slender spits of sand that the sea can’t quite bring itself to wash away. There’s something mystical about these islands, linked by narrow sandy wisps, as perhaps our ephemeral dreams link this reality with another. One particularly scenic example is at St Ninian’s Isle, where the tide comes in as a half-moon wave at both sides of the elongated sands, while children lie flat on their boogie boards, propelled forward up the beach by the breaking swell of the Atlantic Ocean.
It’s amazing how Lerwick, on the east coast, can be smothered in suffocating fog while Scalloway, a mere five miles away on the west coast, will be basking in sunshine. We comment on this to a shop assistant in west coast Hamnavoe. Her snappy rejoinder was “Aye, West is best!” This slogan feels like a nugget that the savvy traveller can take and turn into a certainty with which to demonstrate their travelling credentials at a suitable opportunity -

“Oh you’re going to Shetland, are you? Oh no, don’t stay in Lerwick, the weather is diabolical. It’s always foggy there; it just rolls in off the sea. No, you want to stay in Scalloway, it’s always sunnier there – West is best, don’t you know!”

Otters! Fate favours us with two unexpected sightings of these elusive creatures, a wildlife lottery win. One is seen from distance, but the other crosses a beach in front of us, aware but unconcerned about our excitable presence.
We spend an afternoon at Sumburgh Head, another RSPB reserve - the RSPB has its tentacles everywhere, like the evil organisation from a James Bond film! Sitting by the imposing cliffs is an exercise in controlling the nerves, especially as Gulls swoop by, inducing a lurching vertigo. The view east is out to an immense, unbroken sea, where the occasional ship drifts by, looking so small and vulnerable against this epic backdrop.

There is no doubt that the natural world feels closer here. The sea has a huge role to play, as an elemental force that forms a constant background to life on these islands; the taste of salt is always on the air, the song of tide against rock and sand a backing track to life here.
But of course there are people here too and the islands are a unique intersection of nature, environment and human society. There’s a Scandinavian feel to these settlements, to these place names. This is no surprise, given the history of these islands and their links to Norway and the Vikings. While Scottish nationalists may dream of Independence, I wonder what separatist fantasies lurk in the dreams of Shetlanders. It is worth bearing in mind that their view of history is not necessarily the Scottish view of history. The absorption of Shetland into the body of Scotland was a protracted, occasionally turbulent affair. Here the Scots were an invading force, committing the sins of invaders everywhere.

To me, the Shetland Islands represent the periphery, the edge of a particular world that I call home. However, it is worth remembering that my periphery is actually the centre of someone else’s world. It’s like this for everyone on this planet, as centres and peripheries are designated through accidents of birth and history.

There are some places you go to where human civilisation dominates – the concrete canyons of New York City spring to mind. There are other places, however, where humanity’s imposition on the natural world is more tenuous, more fragile. In such places you can close the curtains and turn up the central heating, but you can’t quite escape the feeling that elemental forces stalk the land, primal djinn that don’t look upon you or yours with any particular favour. Perhaps that is the reason to seek out the periphery, wherever it may be - to remind ourselves that despite all our civilised trappings, life is still raw and untamed; and within each of us, the savage heart continues to beat.