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The Orkney Islands of Scotland: a window into the past and future
My journey to the Orkney Islands, the northern isles of Scotland, started on a NorthLink ferry with a mega-robust “Viking” written on its shiny white hull.
I was among the lucky passengers who had been invited to visit the ferry’s bridge as it sailed out of the Aberdeen harbor.
My heart raced as we watched Captain Lain Williamson maneuver the MV Hjaltland through the twists and turns of the narrow water channel that led to the open North Sea.
The rest of the voyage I stayed in the Magnus’ Lounge, where I had my first taste of Orkney beef – the meaty juicy Viking burger.
A “grand” welcome awaited me at Kirkwall, the capital city of the Orkney Islands.
Every evening at 11 pm, when the NorthLink ferry from Aberdeen to Lerwick (Shetland) arrives in Kirkwall, the terminal is filled with people either sending off or picking up their loved ones.
Among the rush of passengers, I was really happy to see Dave Flanagan, a mutual friend and hospitable Orcadian, on the pier waiting for me.
Seal Islands
“Orkney” is a corruption of the Old Norse name – “Orkneyjar.” “Orkn” means seal and the suf- fix “eyjar” means islands, so the Orkney Islands are also known as the Seal Islands.
Oh how I wished to be like Flanagan, surfing and talking with the seals at the Bay of Skaill, but the spiritual Orkney seals were selective of their friends.
During my five days in Orkney, I saw none of them.
Story of the stone
From the Neolithic through to medieval times and the modern day, Kirkwall’s story has been told by stones.
The Shore by the marina is a new hotel run by the family of Mike, Sam and Maddie.
From my room, I had my first glimpse of the stone houses that had been finely built by highly skillful stonemasons.
A 10-minute walk from The Shore, I paid an “official” visit to Saint Magnus Erlendsson at the St. Magnus Cathedral.
St. Magnus, the Earl of Orkney from 1106 to 1115, was described in medieval literature work The Sagas of the Icelanders as pious, gentle and loved by his people.
Magnus and his cousin Haakon were co-rulers of Orkney but Haakon betrayed Magnus by ordering his cook to kill Magnus, which the cook did by splitting open his head with an axe.
Magnus’ nephew Rognvald Kali Kolsson succeeded the Earl of Orkney and promised the islanders to “build a stone minster at Kirkwall” in memory of the Holy Earl.
St. Magnus Cathedral was thus founded in 1137 as the final resting place for St. Magnus’ relics.
The Cathedral’s polychromatic red and yellow sandstones makes it the “finest example in Great Britain of the use of stones in two different colors,” as Sir Henry Dryden once described it.
A panoramic view from Cathedral bell tower of Kirkwall and beyond revealed a lush, quaint, unruffled city enveloped in the arms of St. Magnus.
Modest Orkney houses a Neo lithic World Heritage Site which archaeologists generally believe could be more important than Stonehenge in England.
The Ring of Brodgar within the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site is as old as the pyramids of Egypt, while the preserved ruins of the Skara Brae prehistoric village are even older than that.
I felt a miraculous connection to prehistoric times as I watched the morning sun shine through the megalithic Standing Stones of Stenness, a grassy ancient ceremonial area where rites and rituals were performed, and wondering what changes time had wrought for humanity over the past five millennia.
Do we still share the same desires and drives that pushed Neolithic people to pray and celebrate here 5,500 years ago?
Artistic Orkney
Want to take something “made in Orkney” home with you?
Choices are plentiful along the Orkney Craft Trail.
I visited craft master Jackie Miller’s workshop at Scapa. Miller was finishing up an original Hooded Orkney Chair.
On the wall, a black and white photo of a “much younger” Miller making a chair with his family sitting beside him completely won my heart.
It takes three weeks to make a handcrafted Orkney Chair and costs around 1,000 pounds ($1,230) to buy one.
Andrew Appleby’s pottery workshop is in Harray, so Appleby is popularly known as “Harray Potter.”
Creative and highly energetic, Appleby is an expert in the prehistoric pottery of the islands.
Visitors should not miss the chance to see Appleby’s masterpiece Neolithic oven that he has set up in the back garden – a unique piece he made and successfully has used to revive Neolithic culinary traditions.
At another shop I found Sheila Fleet’s brilliant enamel jewelry set of white daisies and Scotland bluebells irresistibly tempting.
All based on nature, Fleet’s Viking-inspired designs carry a strong Orcadian identity.
I was immensely delighted to actually meet the artistically-gifted Fleet and her son, the business-talented Martin Fleet, at the shop.
The story of Stromness
“… Streets uncoiled like a sailor’s rope from North to South” – Stromness poet George Mackay Brown (1921-96) once wrote.
The core of Stromness, Orkney’s second largest town, is Main Street, which meanders uphill between the shoreline and the hillside.
The street is a mosaic of flat cobblestones of various sizes, flanked by slate-roof houses and shops, with narrow lanes branching off it.
At the south end of Main Street, I found Login’s Well and the following stone inscription: LOGIN’S WELL THERE WATERED HERE THE HUDSON BAY COY’s SHIPS 1670 – 1891 CAPT. COOK’s VESSELS RESOLUTION AND DISCOVERY SIR JOHN FRANKLIN’S SHIPS EREBUS AND TERROR ON ARCTIC EXPLORATION 1845 ALSO THE MERCHANT VESSELS OF FORMER DAYS WELL SEALED UP 1931 Stromness was still a very small village in 1670 when it was chosen by fur trader Hudson’s Bay Company as the first and last port of call for their ships en route to and from Canada.
Later on, the Orcadian workforce sailed across the Atlantic to Canada for betterpaying jobs offered by the Hudson’s Bay Company, while whaling fleets bound for Davis Strait recruited crews in Stromness until the 1900s.
John Rae (1813-93) was one of these wind riders. Rae was a great Orcadian explorer of the Victorian Age who discovered the Rae Strait (named after him), the final link in the first navigable Northwest Passage.
I visited the Pier Arts Centre for its history and art collection. I found that I could not take my eyes from Orkney painter Stanley Cursiter’s (1887–1976) watercolor landscape Geo at Yesnaby and Brough of Bigging (1929).
Pier Arts Centre curator Andrew Parkinson gave me a short introduction, during which I learned that Cursiter liked to paint the same landscape over and again as the seasons changed. Geo at Yesnaby and Brough of Bigging shows a deluge of life and love. While in Stromness, I also got to meet Dave’s wife Shona Flanagan,
who works in Stromness. The Flanagan couple is true and earnest, which is also my impression of Orcadians in general.
Aromatic Orkney
Highland Park Distillery was founded in 1798 by Magnus Eunson “a butcher, beadle” and successful alcohol smuggler.
My guided tour of Highland Park Distillery was nostalgic.
The malthouse, peat fire, drying and smoking of barley were like something out of a movie.
I got to taste a 40-year old single malt Scotch whiskey from a global award-winning distillery.
I tirelessly enjoyed some authentic dining at The Shore’s restaurant with repeated orders of Orkney beef, fried Grimbister cheese, seafood, local produce and Orkney ice-cream.ice-c
Renewable Orkney
Orkney furtherfu surprised me as being the homeho to the European Marine EnergyEner Centre. Excellent oceanic waves, strong tidal currents,current grid connection, sheltered harborha facilities and the renewable,renewab maritime and environmentalenvironm expertise within the localloc community put Orkneykn in an ideal position for pioneering marine renewable energy projects. As I rest in my cabin on the MV Hrossey during my overnight return voyage, I thought about everything I had seen. Flanagan was confident that I would soon be back. I surely will.